Obsessions
by Little Tanuki
Summary: A strange experiment leads Bashir and O'Brien in a stolen ship across the galaxy.
1. Chapter 1

At the very edge of the vacuum, all was silent. The pulse of the universe turned - slow and ponderous - a constant, slumbering heartbeat. Rise and fall, spin and heave. A towering red and yellow nebula - the ghost of some long ago forgotten star - floated silently through the void, and bathed the surrounding space in a constant, soft hued twilight.

On the boundary of this same cloud, the planet with no name was drifting. Wind swirled in gusts across its surface. And yet, despite the colours that some might even call beautiful, it was cold and barren - a dry, lonely sentinel lost as long as memory at the very fringes of the galaxy.

From a distance, its form was deceptively still, revealing nothing of the fearsome sandstorms that battered its already abused atmosphere. But close to, the edge of the sky bore a far more hazy appearance, reds and sandy browns showing themselves for the turmoil they really represented. And the planet with no name taunted in its solitude. Constant thick clouds never once relented, never once allowed a glimpse at what - if anything - could be found beneath that cover.

After a long silence, a second, much smaller ghost emerged from the darkness and into the dull gleam of twilight. Shapes resolved themselves from the distance. From no more than a barely visible arrow came the spread of something very much like wings, a protruding metal hull, and two painted streaks of orange running all the way from nose to tail.

_They're here_, thought the watcher._Perhaps this time_…

The watcher was pleased to see the approaching vessel move in closer, and circle once around the planet with no name before finally settling into some kind of orbit. Had it known how, or even had a face to smile with, the watcher would have smiled. It had chosen well this time. After all those other grandiose failures, this was the closest that any of them had ever come. It had invested so much with every attempt, planned so carefully, allowed for every contingency. This time, surely…

A shock wave burst upwards from the planet's surface, shaking and pummelling the tiny vessel. Even from its distant observation post, the watcher could feel its force. But many times more powerful was the shock of imminent failure.

_No_! It was the closest any of them had ever come, so close that the watcher could almost taste the anticipation of those on board.

It stared in horror at the wayward ship, silently cursing its inability to stop what was happening, or even to look away. After such careful preparation, so much planning of every possible detail. For them to fail now… Again? The very notion was painful beyond comprehension.

But clearly, the watcher thought, its mistake could not be entirely a matter of bad planning. It had been too careful, gone through all the possible scenarios, mapped its course far too thoroughly to leave any room for error. No. It was obvious now. The fault was with the life forms on board the stricken vessel. They must have been too clumsy. Or too slow to react. Or simply too ready to be swept away by the same certainty that had - sooner or later - laid claim to all who had come before.

The watcher turned its shapeless body around, and crept away. Next time, it would have to make sure that its subjects were more worthy.

It did not stay to watch, even as the shuttle burst apart in a cloud of sparkling flame.

* * *

"There you are, Chief."

Miles O'Brien turned around, and held even tighter to his glass of Malt whiskey. A scowl passed over his face. Whatever happened, he would not be letting go of his drink without a fight. Although, to be honest, he was unlikely to end up with any choice.

It was Dax, striding confidently across the floor of Quark's with her cool blue eyes fixed on their mark. With every stride, O'Brien felt his stomach sink still further.

"You remember that problem we had last week?" she began.

"Which one?" There were always so many.

"The computer backups."

_Oh. That one. That problem that's taken practically all bloody week, round the clock, to fix? How could I forget?_ They'd been randomly locked out of the computer, on and off, for the better part of a month.

"I might…" Caution was threaded through O'Brien's voice.

"Well, it's started again."

"You're joking!" Mouth hanging open like it was weighted down with lead, the sandy-haired engineer turned a disbelieving stare in her direction. "I mean, this is the first spare moment I've had in days, and if it's not one thing it's…"

His voice faded. He paused, studying her carefully, and the sudden tension went out of his shoulders. Half from relief and half from sheer irritation, a quiet sigh escaped through his nose. "You _were_ joking."

There was an all too familiar gleam in Jadzia Dax's clear blue eyes. "Yes," she confirmed, entirely unrepentant. "I was."

"Very funny. And you never _did_ have to come all this way. I should've known."

…_Not unless you had a particular desire to see how I'd react_.

"But isn't there some kind of Earth tradition?" She seated herself on one of the empty chairs beside him.

_She means April Fools'_.

"Entirely the wrong time of year," he reminded her, scowling only half in jest. "Besides, we've been waiting a long time for this."

"And of course --" The mischief in Dax's eyes was plain, and potent. "By 'we', you mean…"

"Me and…"

"…Julian," she finished for him. "You've got your hands on some new battle simulation, and you're just _dying_ to test it out."

"How is it that you know everything?"

"Just lucky, I guess." She shrugged. "_And_, he told me."

_Should've known. No-one alive can keep a secret from Dax_.

She stood up, eyes still gleaming with barely concealed mischief. "He's closer than you think," she told O'Brien, and nodded towards the entrance, where a tall, long-limbed man was already surveying the bar. Dax waved.

Finally noticing the smiling woman and her more irate companion, Julian Bashir made a direct approach for their table. His mouth opened in a broad grin.

Dax stood to leave as she returned his smile. "I'll leave you both to it," she whispered to Miles. "Have fun."

* * *

_This is easier than I expected_, came an unbidden thought from the silence. _I could stay in this place for years. Nobody would ever know. Would have thought they'd put up better security than this_.

The passage was as dark as the sky above the shapeshifter's home world - a place his kind had chosen for their retreat from a galaxy that feared them, hunted them, and drove them into the shadows.

Grids of light passed across the peculiar humanoid form he'd chosen to adopt for the sake of expediency. It was nothing unusual, of course - that expediency required disguise. After so much time spent hiding, as the solids gradually spread to every corner of the galaxy, and even after the shapeshifter and his kind had risen from their place in the darkness and become the masters of a powerful empire, the outcome had barely changed. The solids still feared them. But at least they had evolved into something to be feared - a force with the strength to bite _before_ they were bitten themselves.

It would take time, but their order would come to the galaxy. And then the galaxy would accept it, or perish.

_Yes_, he thought. _I could stay here, see this through_. But then, what would be the point? A loose alliance with a barely known entity, built on the foundation of unintended promises? That was hardly worth staying away for. Besides, the others had given him a clear directive. Get in. Complete the mission. Get out. That was just what he planned to do.

And this pair - the tall, spidery human and his pink-faced companion - these would be the perfect choice.

The shapeshifter looked down to check the device in his hand, which flashed and flickered hypnotically. He knew exactly what he had to do. And he smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

"End program," gasped Miles, and noted with some relief that the sky and greenery were obligingly replaced by a grid of illuminated shapes against a darker grey-green background. He was even more relieved to find himself standing less than two steps from the nearest wall.

Propping himself against it, he waited for the sudden wave of nausea to pass, and for the silent grey ripples to clear from his eyes. As he shook the last remnants of giddiness away, he wondered briefly what else in this scene could be so out of place.

Then he realised. No Julian. That was unusual. The slightest hint of something wrong was normally enough to send the doctor rushing to a person's side, often whether that person wanted him there or not.

He looked up, still bent almost double with much of his weight resting on the wall, and ignored the swaying and tilting beneath his feet. And there was the doctor. Julian Bashir was little more than five steps away, leaning back, face pale, gasping as if he'd been kicked in the chest.

"You too?" Miles asked breathlessly.

Bashir turned to look towards him, and after several drawn out moments, the feeling seemed to pass.

"I suppose so," he confirmed. "But I suggest we don't stay much longer in these heavy costumes."

"No argument from this end."

_And one of us'll need to have a little_… chat _with Quark about malfunctioning environmental controls_. Miles added the silent thought, not without a touch of bitterness. With all that went wrong on the old Cardassian mining station, recreation time was hard to come by.

"Had enough?" he asked Julian, carefully releasing himself from the support of the holosuite wall.

He was relieved to see Julian's weary nod, although not at all surprised. It hadn't been bad - while it lasted - but somehow his heart was no longer in the game.

* * *

Shuffling diagonally across the dimly lit corridor, only half listening to the beat of his own footsteps, Rom - the brother and long-suffering employee of the bartender, Quark - stopped, tensed, and looked behind him. He still had a hyperspanner gripped in one hand, while the other wrapped tightly around a rather heavy box of other tools. Both could make effective weapons, he reflected, if he could believe for a moment that he would ever use them in such a fashion.

There it was again. A loud, reverberating clang as something hard collided with metal. The echoes took several seconds to fade from his hearing.

"Hello?" Rom called. As far as he could remember, his brother hadn't sent anyone else this way. And no-one was booked to enter or leave the holosuites for at least another half hour. With Quark at the bar and his small army of waiters and dabo girls unlikely to venture up from the lower level, Rom was close to certain. He was supposed to be alone.

But there was the same noise. Again. Holding his breath, Rom backed into the shadows. The disconnected sound was twice as loud, which could only mean one thing. Whatever had caused it was coming closer.

* * *

A brief, once-over scan revealed nothing too far out of the ordinary, but Julian had hardly expected it to. Judging from this, it appeared that their first assumption must have been correct. A sudden rush of warmth to the holosuite interior had been trapped by their heavy, fur-lined costumes, and whatever they'd experienced had been a simple case of overheating.

"Just to be safe," he'd assured Miles, above his friend's protestations. He waved his tricorder like a threat. "I _can_ make it an order if you'd rather."

"Fine," Miles grunted, his gruff Irish tones even more gravel laden than usual. "If you must. Just get it over with."

But he reserved the greater portion of his ire for Quark.

The doctor had never been partial to making open threats. When he had to, he could be convincing enough, but would never feel that his words quite fit. He preferred a level gaze and a firm, commanding tone to actually ruffling people's collars, but Chief Petty Officer Miles Edward O'Brien had no such compunctions.

"None of your excuses, Quark," he growled as Bashir looked on. Snatching the lapels of the Ferengi bartender's jacket, he yanked the smaller man forward until they were almost nose to nose - as if to make perfectly certain that he understood. His usual catch cry of_Satisfaction is not Guaranteed _was not going to work this time.

Julian struggled to suppress a grin as the chief continued his unstoppable tirade.

"And one more thing," he concluded finally. "There are more important issues here than your profit margin. This is a matter of public safety and you _will_ see that it doesn't happen again, or so help me…"

"Chief," whined Quark in that pseudo-friendly drawl that regularly set station residents' teeth on edge. He raised his hands. "I'm _sorry_ you feel that way. But it's like I keep saying. If you had only spared one of your oh-so-capable engineers for just a few minutes, I wouldn't be experiencing these problems. Which means that _you_ wouldn't be experiencing these problems. So. You see my predicament, surely?"

Chief O'Brien grumbled something which could have been, "If we'd wanted sweltering heat we'd have picked one o' them bloody Klingon programs."

Quark's rebuttal was cut short by the sudden arrival of a second very pale Ferengi - so pale that Bashir's doctor-instinct instantly propelled him forward.

"Rom? Are you… all right?"

Quark's younger brother looked up from where he'd come close to tumbling down the stairs. He gaped at his audience, his wide-set blue eyes as round as saucers.

"Rom?"

"He's fine," snapped Quark, and grabbed the mute Ferengi by the arm. He gave it a rough shake. "You're fine, aren't you?"

Rom nodded, although his mouth still hung open like he was looking to trap something.

Unsure what was holding him back, Julian stared. But Quark was already making his retreat. "_If _you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a bar to run."

As one Ferengi half dragged the other around a maze of dabo tables, Miles O'Brien stepped forward. "What was _that _all about?" he whispered intently.

Julian Bashir shook his head. "I honestly don't know."

But he kept his focus on the two Ferengi brothers until they had disappeared from sight. _Breathing, rapid and shallow. Pulse, most likely racing… Rom isn't ill_, the doctor realised. _He's scared_.


	3. Chapter 3

More irritable than ever from Chief O'Brien's earlier abuse, Quark was glad that there was at least somebody around to vent his frustration upon.

"Rom, you idiot," he snapped at the earliest opportunity. "You were_supposed_ to be working on the holosuite controls. And what's with that stupid look? I ought to take you out and string you up by your lobes."

Rom opened and closed his mouth, standing as mute as a week old garden slug.

_This is where you say something_, Quark thought angrily. _Yes, Brother. Or no, Brother. By the Blessed Exchequer, say _anything._This is not how it's supposed to go_.

His useless younger brother's mouth continued to open, and close - and open and close again. Quark felt his impatience rise like a mounting flood. Finally, after a long and agonising silence, the muscles in his brother's throat gave a start as though realising - and not before time - that they could make noise.

"Brother…" stammered Rom. "I saw… I saw…"

"Saw_what_?" Quark demanded, his voice easily three times as loud as he had intended it to be.

"I saw… _me_."

"What?" Had it finally happened? Had Rom finally gone completely, irrevocably insane?

"I saw me. By the holosuite door. It was pretty dark. I don't think he… I mean I… I mean, I don't think whoever it was saw me. But it was definitely… At least, I think it was… Oh, Brother. I'm so confused." His voice trailed away to a thin moan.

_You're confused, all right_, Quark longed to say. Instead he snarled and threw a rag at Rom.

"Go clean the tables."

* * *

Julian could find no reason to be as restless as he was that night, and could think of nothing to explain his peculiarly nervous anxiety, like beetles scurrying up and down beneath his skin.

And yet, there he was, lying on his back with his bedclothes kicked into an agitated jumble, his gaze roaming back and forth along every shadow that had forged a path across the ceiling of his quarters. The dim light obscured what little colour there was, and the whole room seemed to mock his search for logical explanations.

Fragmented images paraded through his thoughts, all oddly disconnected like a jigsaw with too many missing pieces. A ship. A planet with no name. A pair of yellow eyes staring coldly from the darkness.

If he had not been so wide awake, he would have wondered if he wasn't dreaming. But in spite of the oppressive silence closing in from every direction, this was surely no dream, and he was equally unable to shake away the call.

_Go to sleep, Julian. This is ridiculous. You've got surgery tomorrow_. He wondered where his restless gaze had lingered the longest. Was it on the curving beams running like a ribcage across the ceiling and down the nearby walls? Or was it on the starlit shadows creeping inwards from the adjacent room?

With all the time he'd lain awake, he ought to have been able to picture the shapes around his bedroom even with his eyes tightly closed. But every time he _did_ close his eyes, the scattered, dreamlike images rose unbidden into his thoughts. And something was watching him, its eyes solidifying in the uneven lines of light and darkness.

_Perhaps a warm drink_…

He chuckled, a far more bitter sound than he had expected.

_Or perhaps a strong anaesthetic. Or a frontal lobotomy. Might as well face facts - you are _not _going to sleep tonight_.

With a sigh that sounded more like a frustrated scream, he kicked the covers from across his waist and hauled himself out of bed.

* * *

The corridor of the habitat ring could hardly have been quieter if the entire station had been running on reserve power. Even cruising alone through the blackness of space in a runabout with the lights turned low was never as silent as the early hours of morning on Deep Space Nine.

It was only an artificial night. Julian knew that as well as anyone, and vividly recalled how difficult it had been at first for him to adjust to the new twenty six hour daily cycle. Still, illusion or not, and regardless of how dark the station could be even at the height of each passing day, this near-empty hall was noticeably dimmer than usual.

"_This way_," said a voice from around the next corner.

_Auditory hallucinations now_? he thought, surprised at how detached and coldly intellectual the question seemed to him. The same voice drove him onward, beckoning and taunting. But who was to say that he was hallucinating at all? If felt real enough. Maybe there _was_ somebody calling to him, somewhere just beyond his sight. And there was nothing he could do to fight a consuming, almost visceral urge to follow.

"Where are you taking me, then?" he asked in a hushed whisper, his own voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silent corridor. He paused, uncertain for a moment which way he should go, and peered wide-eyed in both directions. He realised belatedly that his feet were leading him in a sharp arc towards the doors of the turbolift.

"_This way_."

Feeling a hot rush of adrenaline just beneath his skin, Julian asked himself where the voice could have been coming from this time. He stepped inside, and turned to face the open doors. "Docking Bay Five," he heard himself say.

_The Docking Ring_? demanded a persistently irritating thought. _What could possibly be in Bay Five_?

The lift sped smoothly towards its destination, but he did not have time to consider the situation before the flashes of light and dark began to slow, and the vibration of the turbolift quietened and ceased. Julian tapped restlessly upon the rail. His brow was furrowed, shoulders slightly hunched, and he waited for the doors to open.

Somebody else was already at the airlock.

"Miles!" exclaimed Julian. He jumped back, startled, and feeling as though he'd been caught in the middle of something ever so slightly illicit.

"Shh." Miles was crouching by the outer wall. He pressed a finger to his own lips, and pointed. "Hear that?"

_Something strangely quiet, and pulsing. Nothing at all like the hum of equipment. More like_…

"A heartbeat," whispered Julian.

"Exactly!"

"But we shouldn't be able to hear anything coming from out there. It's all sound-proof, isn't it?"

"It ought to be."

"_This way_."

Miles O'Brien tensed visibly. "I can override the security lock," he said, glancing nervously around him. "It'll take a while to scramble whatever records there might be, but it'll be manageable enough."

"Why not just use your security code?" Bashir turned back from where he'd been peering through the transparent sections of the cog-shaped door. There was something on the other side, but too little was visible to offer any clues.

O'Brien scowled. "Why not yours?"

"Good point." But Julian paused, frowning slightly, asking himself why either of them should be so reluctant to leave a record of their access codes.

The throb of his own blood rushing past his ears was growing steadily louder and faster. And the noise from outside was speeding up to match. Julian's brow tensed still further. Was such a thing even medically possible? For a bone-chilling moment, he wondered if he really was losing his mind. But then, he thought, why would he and Miles be sharing the same bizarre illusion? Why was his friend even there?

Whatever the answer, he was itching to discover what lay beyond that airlock.


	4. Chapter 4

If the clocks on the station should ever stop working, its occupants would still have no difficulty keeping track of time. It was easy to do, requiring nothing more than a sharp eye and a close watch on the daily routine of its ever vigilant Chief of Security.

Except on that day.

It was 0900 hours, far too long past what ought to have been Security Chief Odo's third daily stint of Quark watching time. But as the shops on the Promenade opened their doors, long after the bustling crowd had crept towards its morning peak, he had not had a single chance to check in on the dastardly Ferengi.

He sat at his desk, listening with open consternation to the short, round-bellied, and loudly irate shuttle captain. Even after half an hour of constant shouting, the man had not even paused to draw breath.

"I've been making the same run now for more years than I'd care to count. Do you have any idea how much time - how much _work_ - it takes to build a reputation like mine? People trust me. They can see that I'm always punctual. And that means I run on a tight schedule. _Tight_, I tell you. I've not missed a single rendezvous yet, and I do not enjoy seeing my ship go… _missing_."

With that last word, deep cracks were revealed in the shuttle captain's forced veneer of self-control.

"And I hope _you_ can appreciate, these kind of investigations take time." Odo's own impatience was even more poorly concealed. "In the meantime, I will do all I can to ensure that your property is restored to you."

"Intact?"

"The sooner you allow me to do my job, the better able I will be to make you that promise."

* * *

"I've checked and double checked everything I could find," rasped Odo, standing in his accustomed place at the opposite side of the captain's desk. Benjamin Sisko raised his eyebrows, still waiting to discover exactly why his Security Chief had asked especially to see him over a simple incident of shuttle theft. But there was no chance to speculate, as Odo continued to speak in an even, level tone. "I've been over the shuttle records, station records, computer logs - _everything_ - for any sign of unusual activity."

"And?"

"_And_, Captain… I am afraid I do not have good news for you. At least, nothing that you are going to like."

"Give me the bad news quickly, then."

The constable handed him a padd, which Sisko accepted with a nod of thanks. But as he studied it, his brow continued to tense by degrees. He paced the length of his desk until his consternation and disbelief were too intense to be contained.

"_What_?!"

"I was far from certain whether to believe it either," responded Odo. "Unfortunately, in my line of work I am rarely afforded the luxury of assuming that anything is impossible. I've been through every other line of reasoning. There is no evidence of voice imprints or computer malfunctions. I have also ruled out the potential for station wide sabotage, or even some new scheme of Quark's. And now there is no other conclusion I can reach. The records were thoroughly scrambled, but it would appear that whoever accessed the airlock controls has a good working knowledge of the station's systems. It seems that the shuttle in question disappeared some time between 0130 and 0300 hours last night, and since then, neither Chief O'Brien nor Doctor Bashir has reported for duty. I checked the computer. They are not on the station. Which means that whatever it is they've been trying to accomplish, they haven't covered their tracks very well."

"But _why_ would they steal a shuttle?" demanded Sisko, his own sense of incredulity rising along with his voice. True enough, there were times when keeping those two in line - whether separately or together - was like trying to rein in a couple of wayward adolescents. But the majority of their escapades carried at least some rationale, however little he agreed with it at times. This time just made no _sense_.

No, he corrected himself - with a reminder that he could not afford to dismiss anything as impossible, any more than Odo could. He'd been through too much already to believe that anything happened without _some_ reasoning behind it. The actions of his officers made no sense to him now, but only because he had not yet found a way to explain them.

_So we look for that explanation_, he decided. _And so help me, if they aren't already in trouble, they will be_.


	5. Chapter 5

"I need you to keep this to yourselves for as long as you can," Benjamin Sisko had advised them, glancing in turn at Odo, Dax, and the Bajoran Major Kira Nerys. They all nodded, although Dax was still more than a little uneasy about the expectations of secrecy. Sisko's gaze lingered especially long on her. "At least until we know something more than we do. And that's your job, Commander. Find anything that we can use - or at the very least, something to explain what's going on. Any questions, you'll co-ordinate with the constable. Major, I need you to do whatever you can to unscramble the computer records from last night. We have to find out where that ship was going."

"And then what?" asked Kira.

"And then, we get them back."

It was nearly half a day since the moment when Sisko had first called them to his office, but now - finally - Dax felt that she had something reliable to take to the captain.

"What have you found?" Benjamin's deep voice called out to her the moment she strode back into Ops.

Jadzia wasted no time with greetings. Stepping forward, she displayed a strange metal cylinder cupped in one hand. It was the size of her palm, its surface a dull, matted grey except for a ring of pinpoint red specks where lights were most likely meant to flash across the visible plane.

"This was at Quark's," she explained. "It appears that somebody attached it to the outer wall of the holosuite. Possibly while the Chief and Julian were inside."

"Somebody," grunted Odo from barely five steps behind her. He'd been stonily silent for over five minutes. "I would still rather know who it was."

"I'll leave that to you, Constable," said the captain. "_My_ question is, what is it?"

"I don't know," Dax confessed. But she kept her voice clear and assured, and her steel blue eyed gaze as level as she could make it. "But I _can_ tell you that it's set to project a powerful electromagnetic pulse throughout any adjacent rooms. And that's not all. We've discovered that it was meant to go off at regular intervals, and at a very specific frequency."

"Which means?"

Again, Dax worked hard to keep all signs of hesitation or prethought from her voice. "Sorry, Captain, but your guess is as good as mine. No doubt it was designed to have a very particular effect on those inside. As to what that would be, I'm sorry to have to repeat myself, but…"

Sisko scratched the line of his beard. "You don't know."

"And you found that thing in Quark's?" asked Kira as she stepped forward for a closer look.

"Well according to Quark, he knows nothing of any of this," said Dax. She left out the bartender's lengthy protestations that she and Odo were as bad as Chief O'Brien. "He _insists_ that he's done nothing wrong."

"And I believe him."

The latest comment had been far from expected, and all eyes turned towards its source. Jadzia hardly knew which surprised her more - to hear such a view expressed, or to discover that it had come from Odo.

"Captain," the constable persevered, either failing to notice or simply ignoring the vista of collective incredulity. "If Commander Dax's theory is correct, then it would stand to reason that Doctor Bashir is not responsible for what has happened, and nor is Chief O'Brien. And I hate to be the one saying this, but neither is Quark. There is simply no profit in sabotaging his own holosuites."

"Fine," said Captain Sisko. He nodded briefly at Odo, enough to say that this conversational track had ended. "But for the moment at least, placing blame is not our top priority. The first concern has to be, how do we bring them back?"

* * *

After releasing the station's hold upon their new-found shuttle, Miles O'Brien's next task - as far as he was concerned, at least - was to determine exactly what it was they'd managed to commandeer.

The cockpit was a little under half the size of a runabout's, with a narrow panel setting it apart from what he supposed must have been a larger but equally claustrophobic passenger compartment. Thick, porous padding lined the interior walls, most with a near identical metallic grey shade to the outside of Deep Space Nine. "Homely," muttered Miles under his breath. It was a far bulkier, more sluggish craft than he was accustomed to, patched together as shoddily as a quilt sewn by a five year old. Even the bulkheads were showing visible signs of surface wear, occasionally even bordering on the extreme. It was of no comfort at all to realise that the ship was already down to its final gasp.

The rear section had been hollowed out as if to make room for cargo, but later filled with hard, cramped seating arranged in several rows of two or three. The unusual configuration of every control panel was taking him some time to accustom himself to. Shield controls in particular had been especially difficult to locate, and the old fashioned transporter - roughly installed as though more of an afterthought than as something that anyone had planned - did not appear to be connected to any power source that he could ascertain.

Allowing the vessel to cruise for several minutes on what seemed to be some primitive form of autopilot, Miles set himself the task of hauling open every single access panel he could find. Julian Bashir had offered to help. Of _course_ he had. But O'Brien had met his offer with the most fearsome, uninviting glare that he could muster.

"Believe it or not, Julian. I _can_ do this."

"Don't worry, Chief. I have every confidence in your ability to figure it out. You always do."

"Oh, you're too kind," O'Brien grumbled. "That makes me feel _so_ much better."

Not knowing what had led them to this point did nothing to help the Chief's mood. He was surprised that there wasn't already somebody on their tail, especially since - so far, at least - they'd been led on a pretty obvious course. They had taken a particularly bone jolting ride through the neon blue of the wormhole, and emerged at the other side with no more of an idea of why they'd left the station behind than they'd had when entering.

And as soon as the ship steadied, the doctor had risen calmly to his feet and procured a doubly strong raktajino from a replicator at the very back corner of the passenger cabin.

Neither did anything to draw attention to the fact, but Miles could not help but notice how infuriatingly easy it had been for Julian to adapt to the unfamiliar settings. _Extension courses_, he thought, shaking his head at the sheer unfairness of it all. _Bloody engineering extension courses_.

The peculiar anxieties that had plagued him through the night had faded somewhat, but he knew little else but that they were somehow travelling in the right direction. He sighed, wishing that he could at least relax a little more. His head still ached. His skin still felt as if several inch-long beetles were crawling up and down his arms. And meanwhile, Julian was… what? Perched on one of the pilot seats, calmly sipping Klingon coffee like nothing was even amiss.

But when O'Brien finally did glance up, it was clear that the doctor had barely touched his drink. Bashir sat very still, and rubbed his thumb slowly, contemplatively, up and down the side of his mug.

"What do you suppose this is about?" he muttered, staring into its depths as though answers could be fished from the rapidly cooling liquid inside. The muscles of his forehead were gathered into a troubled frown.

Echoing the doctor's expression, O'Brien pushed himself upright - from where he'd been lying on his belly across the deck. "What?"

"This. All of it." With a sweeping gesture, Bashir indicated the hulking mass of their shuttle. "It doesn't make any…" He paused.

"What was that?"

O'Brien rushed over to join him, and barely held back a string of expletives that would have impressed even a shipload of drunken Klingons. He stared in horror at the tiny icons edging unstoppably across a display screen the size of his hand.

"Jem'Hadar," he growled. "Bearing… One Eight Two, Mark Four. Straight for us."

"But there aren't supposed to be any Dominion ships this close to the wormhole."

"Tell _them_ that."

"Well - we know this thing's got sensors, anyhow," commented Julian, suddenly all action as his fingers danced lithely over the controls.

"Which is about all she's got." Dropping into the co-pilot's chair, Miles sensed his own pulse gather speed. His focus was sharp, body flooded with adrenaline as he fought to keep the panic from his voice.

_You're a soldier, dammit_, he cursed himself. _You've been in worse situations than this_. For a brief moment - barely longer than it would have taken for him to blink - he thought of Keiko, away on Bajor for another one of her botany expeditions, and of the beautiful dark eyes of his daughter Molly. And for just a moment, he felt their despair. What would it do to them, to hear that he'd ended his days as a far away cloud of vaporised dust and flame?

Then, as suddenly as if he'd simply flicked a switch, years of training and hardened battle experience took hold.

"Transferring power to the forward shields." His voice sounded oddly detached, but he took some comfort from the well-worn lines. "Preparing to bring her about."

"You didn't happen to find us any weapons, did you, Chief?"

"On this old hunk of scrap metal? No such luck." Chief O'Brien stared at the nearest advancing speck. "And I've got even more bad news."

"I know. We're too bulky to outrun them."

"You just had to go ruin my surprise."

Julian's eyes betrayed little emotion, but his answering smile was unusually tight, lips pressed into a thin line. "How long until they have us in range?" he asked.

"One minute and counting."

The doctor whistled, soft and low. "Then I guess we're in for some fireworks."


	6. Chapter 6

"Have you managed to get a workable sensor reading yet?" asked Sisko.

"Nearly," Dax called to him. Since reporting her initial discovery, she'd wanted to find out more, but had been summarily reassigned to assisting Major Kira in her attempts to track the shuttle's last recorded movements. Crouching face first beneath the nearest companel, elbow deep in wires and circuitry, was not how she'd anticipated spending the early hours of the afternoon. But Curzon, Lela, and Torias Dax had all learnt to throw their expectations to the wayside, and now Jadzia Dax was reminded of that same hard lesson.

_When exactly did I become this station's resident spare part_? she asked herself, although if she was honest, she didn't mind so very much. It was always an extra challenge - to be the one called upon whenever either of her colleagues was sick, indisposed, or otherwise unavailable. But ducking in and out of engineering consoles was far more Tobin's element than it ever had been hers.

_But Tobin's not here, Jadzia. You are. So get on with it_.

"This is some impressive scrambling work the chief's managed to get done," she told Benjamin as she pressed together yet another pair of glowing wires. Hooking her fingers over the top of the bench, she pushed herself backwards away from the console.

"There," she said. "Try it again now."

"Still nothing." Kira shook her head, and Jadzia held back a sigh of disappointment. But then the major leaned forward, eyes slightly narrowed. "No, wait. I've got something. A shuttle _did_ leave from Docking Bay Five at exactly Oh Two Hundred last night. It's still a little hard to decipher, but its signature… _appears_ to match our missing ship."

"Heading?" barked the captain.

Kira looked up, her expression shifting from puzzlement, to surprise, to anxious concern. "For the wormhole?"

As if something had been activated inside him, Ben Sisko switched instantaneously to full command mode. "Dax. Major. You're with me." He slapped his combadge. "Sisko to Odo."

"_Odo here_."

"Meet us at the Defiant's docking port," he ordered as the two women joined him in the turbolift. "We've got a shuttle to catch."

* * *

"I don't believe it," exclaimed O'Brien. His companion swivelled towards him, open incredulity writ clear upon his face. But once was not even nearly enough to express the magnitude of Chief O'Brien's astonishment.

"I don't believe it. They flew right past us. Why?"

"Do I know?" snapped Julian. Now that they were out of immediate danger, the tension of the moment turned quickly to short tempered ire. "I'm a doctor, not a tactician. And certainly not a Jem'Hadar."

Miles sensed that beneath that veil of irritability, his friend was every bit as disconcerted as he was. One distinctively insectoid Jem'Hadar ship had come less than twenty kilometres away from their port side, easily close enough to have scattered the shuttle into a hundred thousand pieces of debris. Miles had felt the slowing passage of time, of seconds stretched to infinity until the moment when he'd realised, _Now. Now is the part where you die_. With a deep breath, he flexed the tension from his hands. Their company continued on its original course.

O'Brien noted the flash of light as the Jem'Hadar all jumped to warp speed and vanished into the distance.

Something else caught his attention. "Uh oh," he said.

Julian's now anxious gaze was fixed upon him. "'Uh oh'?" he repeated. "What's 'uh oh'?"

"Something I'd hoped wouldn't end up being a problem." O'Brien was quick to rise from his chair. "The integrity in some of these older, heavier models isn't quite what it should be. It doesn't happen often, but - just occasionally, mind - diverting power can be enough to weaken the structural integrity field. And seeing as this ship was on its last legs to begin with…"

"Great." Julian clenched his jaw. "So instead of being shot to pieces, we're going to break apart all by ourselves. Now I feel better."

_You and me both_, thought O'Brien. Aloud, he said, "I need to get aft. If I can poke around the systems for a bit, I reckon I'll be able to make a pretty decent patch job from there. Decent enough to get us as far as the nearest star system, anyway. Can't say what state we'll be in once we get there. But at least this tin can'll be basically intact. We'll definitely have to put in for repairs at the first place we find."

The doctor gazed thoughtfully at his console. He looked as unhappy as Miles felt at the prospect of a delay.

But after a brief silence, Bashir nodded. "Right. Let's do that. I'll fly, you fix. And let's just hope we don't find ourselves begging for help at some forgotten Dominion outpost somewhere."

"Well, that'll be your job to see to, won't it?" Miles disappeared into the rear compartment, pausing only to remind himself where he'd spied an extra box of tools.

* * *

Dim neon hues of green and violet filtered softly into the narrow interior of the scout ship, to which the shapeshifter had transported shortly after making his getaway. Worn out and tense, tired of being so far from home, he had isolated himself from his battalion of grim faced Jem'Hadar and instructed the Vorta Eiyon to keep to the same course. Then he had retreated to his quarters to regenerate. The ship was dark, cramped. Crowded. And the shapeshifter longed for nothing at that moment if not for quiet and solitude.

He had no real desire to return to being humanoid, even as his regeneration cycle drew close to completion. Better to remain as he was. Shapeless and fluid, unlimited by the discomforting confinement of solid form. So much easier, so much more peaceful, to allow himself the simplicity of a rock or cloud. But his work was not yet finished. He still had one more task, and so - quietly and reluctantly - the shapeshifter forced himself once more into that familiar but unnatural form.

_Arms. Legs. Fingers_, he thought with an edge of contempt. But rocks and clouds could not accomplish what still remained incomplete.

His door chimed, and the shapeshifter turned towards it. "Come."

Eiyon had already arranged himself into a low bow, even before the door slid open. "My apologies, Founder, but you asked to be informed of any other ships approaching from the passage."

It was true. Just before his regeneration, the shapeshifter had indeed requested exactly that. He nodded. Striding confidently along the poorly lit corridor, he brushed past Eiyon, who followed him onto the bridge.

"Give me your headpiece," he ordered, and the Vorta obliged without hesitation. A subtle flick of his right-hand thumb was enough to activate it, the shapeshifter immediately rewarded with the flickering, fluorescent green light that typically illuminated an active viewing lens.

"Reopen our previous channel," he told the nearest Jem'Hadar, who was waiting at the helm.

The huge reptilian soldier pressed a button on his console, and a slightly airy, disembodied voice soon reached the shape shifter's hearing.

"_It is done_?" the voice asked.

"It is done," the shapeshifter confirmed. "Just moments ago, our patrols located their vessel at the Gamma side of the passage. They _are_ coming."

"_Yes. The connection is strong. I can sense their presence_." There was a pause, and then a noise which sounded very much like breath escaping. "_I am pleased_."

But the shapeshifter cared little for the pleasure of this curious being. "Just remember what we agreed," he said, his reply soft and taut. "Whatever you discover, you share. And our part in this alliance is finished."

Without waiting for an answer, he severed their subspace connection and turned towards the silently patient Vorta. "Set a course for the home world," he commanded, summarily disappearing into the aft section before Eiyon had a chance to respond.


	7. Chapter 7

His hands still trembled, but Julian Bashir continued to divide his attention fluidly between the main console and the scrapes, bumps, and occasional swear word that reached him from the unseen compartment at the back. "Are you alright back there, Chief?" he called over his shoulder.

"I fix, you fly," a muffled, slightly reverberating growl reminded him.

"Sorry."

For half a second, he'd considered offering his assistance, even if that meant only watching from the sidelines and passing along whatever tools were needed. But then Bashir recalled the reaction his earlier offer had received. _Fair enough_, he thought. _The chief's very proud of his work. And so he should be_.

A shuddering jolt passed all the way through the ship - and from the rear came a crash, a shout of pain, and another round of impressively fluent swearing.

Julian opted not to say anything this time. The first two sounds most probably meant that Miles had banged his head again, but the doctor took his stream of rapid fire curses as proof that his friend was unlikely to welcome any offer of medical attention.

_But we can't keep on like this_, he thought. It was the third time already that he'd seen the walls rattle. Just twice more - maybe three times at best - and they could farewell any hope of reaching their destination. Wherever _that_ might be.

His determination renewed, he released a breath that he hadn't noticed himself holding in, and stared at the front screen. "Computer. Display current co-ordinates."

He took a moment to study the collection of illuminated curves and circles. His eyes narrowed. "Time to nearest system?"

"_Nearest star system identified as Seron Mu. Estimate arrival at current course and velocity in ten minutes, twenty four seconds_."

_Seron Mu_? "Never heard of it," muttered Bashir, feeling a slight headache arise from the tension in his brow.

"_Please restate request_."

He shook his head. "Never mind. Computer. Uh… Display all records of Dominion activity in this sector and cross-reference."

"_Working_."

The display changed slightly, luminescent yellow star charts now overlaid with patches of red. Julian thought fast. "Is there any record of Dominion activity in or around Seron Mu?"

"_Negative_."

_Doesn't mean there never has been_, he reminded himself uneasily.

"How many planets in the Seron System?"

"_Seven_."

"Inhabited?"

"_Unknown_."

Julian sighed. "Well, it's the best shot we have." As if to answer his words, he felt a tremor run beneath his feet. "Ten minutes, you say?"

"_Confirmed. Estimated time remaining, ten minutes, sixteen seconds_."

He added a silent thought. _Let's just hope there's still a ship left once we get there_.

* * *

Miles returned to join him just as the first of three multicoloured gas giants was coming into view. A patch of skin just below his hairline was slightly redder than it most likely should have been, and a dark scowl shaded his eyes. "Where are we?" he asked, slotting himself back into the empty seat.

"Seron Mu," replied Julian as a distant, medium sized star inched steadily across their viewscreen. The planets appeared to revolve around an ice-white cosmic body just a few hundred kilometres wider than the Terran Sun, which emitted a constant, deceptively cold-tinted glow. He pondered momentarily why a star viewed from this distance should remind him so much of the Nativity scenes of old Earth.

"Never heard of it," said O'Brien, breaking Julian away from his thoughts.

The doctor shrugged, but kept his eyes on the brightly glowing spheres. "Neither had I, but the computer seems to think it makes for a good destination. We can put in here for repairs."

"Put in _where_?" Chief O'Brien's scowl deepened. He stared unhappily at the vista in front of him. "I hate to say it, Julian, but I don't see any evidence that these places are even habitable. Never mind populated."

"I do!" Bashir exclaimed suddenly, and laughed. Miles glanced briefly his way as though attempting to calculate just how certifiable his friend really was. With a grin of triumph, Bashir indicated a blinking green light on the right hand side of his console. "Someone's hailing us."

* * *

She was watching him, earnest anticipation radiating like solar energy from those clear blue eyes of hers. She'd _been_ watching him ever since they left the station. He could sense that she was itching to speak, and worried in secret that with the docking clamps released, and the Defiant once again launched into the void, she would take the first chance she could find.

"Benjamin," said Dax as soon as they were alone.

Sisko braced himself, and turned around. He'd been right. The muscles in his jaw suddenly felt as taut as refined titanium. "What is it, old man?"

Dax wasted no time in pointless hesitation. "May I ask what you plan to _do_ once we reach the Gamma Quadrant?"

That was one of the many things he admired about Dax. She… He… _They_ had always displayed a near prodigious talent for saying just what needed to be said, at exactly the time when they needed to say it.

_Which I suppose is one reason why I already knew what her question would be_, he reflected, staring for a moment at the curvature of the Defiant's corridor wall. But he still had to hold back a desire to throw something hard against the bulkhead. Instead, he grimaced, and scratched a patch of skin behind his right ear. He suspected even before he spoke that she'd already guessed his answer.

"I don't know," he said, certain that he would never have confessed to anybody else. "I'm aware that this is like searching for the smallest needle in the largest haystack in the galaxy. But even with what little we already know, it has to be better than nothing."

Suddenly more tired than he'd felt since waking, he returned his attention to those questioning sapphire blue eyes. "I'm open to _any_ suggestions right now."

Dax nodded, and with that small gesture, the captain knew she was resolved. "I'll get right on it."

Benjamin's answering smile was tight, but it was also genuine. That was another thing he liked about Dax. She kept her promises.

"Thanks, old man. I know you will."


	8. Chapter 8

"It's coming from the fourth planet." O'Brien leaned in close. "Somewhere near the equator."

"Here goes nothing," commented Bashir. Reaching forward, he opened a channel.

"This is Ushia Den SaiNor of Seron Dala Planetary Traffic Control," a loud, slightly tinny and distorted voice announced. "Unknown vessel, state your business."

"Our business?" Julian whispered urgently. "What _is_ our business?"

"We're on a supply run through some nearby systems," offered O'Brien. It was as plausible a lie as any other he could think up at such short notice. "I guess we must've gotten a little lost."

There was silence at the other end, and the two men exchanged a nervous glance. Each passing second was marked by the pulse of blood already audible behind Miles' ears. He held his breath, and realised that his friend was doing the same. And there was no face for them to see. Nothing to reassure them that Ushia Den SaiNor - or whatever his name was - was even close to friendly, or if it mattered in the long run whether he believed their story or not.

"Our sensors indicate that you have sustained an integrity breach," the voice continued. Julian tensed visibly. "And you may be venting plasma. Do you require assistance?"

The spacecraft shuddered yet again. "Do we ever?" muttered Miles as he clung to the corner of the control panel.

Falling back against his seat, Julian ran his fingers through his hair. He laughed, soft and breathy - the sound of sudden relief.

"That's an affirmative," he responded, although O'Brien was far from certain that he really needed to respond so loudly. And now the doctor was grinning. "Yes. Please. _Anything_ you could do would be more than welcome."

"Understood." Miles wondered if he'd heard a slight chuckle in Ushia's reply. "Stand by. We'll tow you to our Central Base."

* * *

_Outsiders. Aliens. And you are among the first in the entire system ever to see their kind. Certainly this is a great day to be leader of your people_.

Governor MeiZar had scarcely been able to contain his excitement since U-an, his eager young aide, had summoned him to the Central Base of Dulan City with news that had made his fingertips tingle. Trembling with anticipation, he'd done his best not to rush about like an impatient young boy. Calm, authoritative, in control; that was what every good governor before him had been, and that was exactly how he wished to appear. He tried almost painfully hard to conceal the thundering beat of his own heart, and pushed away a foolishly boyish grin.

He was an old man. He'd held his position for so many years that every season seemed to pass him by before he'd had time to accustom himself to the close of the previous one. But this event - this could very well be the defining moment in an otherwise uneventful career.

Each of his hands was clasped tightly around the other, and both were concealed against his lower back. It was a trick he'd learnt long ago, which went some way to stilling whatever disquiet he often felt, and also forced him to stand a little taller than he might otherwise have done. But he suspected - with a fond sidelong glance to the woman at his right - that U-an had seen through his tricks from the very beginning.

As Governor MeiZar watched from the balcony, he looked down towards a line of young men and women who had stepped into formation beside the hull of the alien vessel. Each was dressed in a lightweight, ankle length gown of soft purple. MeiZar knew that the loose fitting garments concealed an impressive array of weaponry, and that even unarmed, any one of those young men and women could be a formidable opponent when fighting hand to hand. Even the strictly formalised procedures for meeting new alien species never carried any guarantees.

The door to the alien vessel levered itself open with a hiss of computer powered hydraulics. MeiZar kept his focus upon it, eagerly hoping for a glimpse of whatever was inside. But except for a weak and distant pulse of flashing green somewhere just beyond the entrance, the shuttle interior was almost entirely dark.

Shadows blanketing the doorway became a pair of humanoid men, both of them blinking in the sudden daylight. The first - whose upper lip curled slightly as he squinted in the glow of the Seron sun - was tall and slender, almost as if he'd been stretched into shape. His companion was only slightly shorter, although a little stocky, with hair like the fleece of the wild animals occasionally seen clambering around the cliffs of Aladth'a.

They stepped from their vessel and took in the scene before exchanging a silent glance between themselves.

_This is it_, thought MeiZar, although from what he saw of these aliens, they looked even more uncertain than he secretly felt. He strode forward, followed closely by U-an and two more of his aides. The pair watched mutely from the landing pad.

"Er…" said the shorter of the two men before MeiZar could even begin the speech he'd rehearsed on the way. His voice was rough but clear, and carried well upon the breeze. "I know how this must look pretty bad. But I'm an engineer myself. Honestly, given one or two people to assist - not to mention better tools than what there ever was on our vessel - I'm betting I can make whatever repairs we need, and we'll be on our way by this time tomorrow."

The governor chuckled. "I'll leave that to somebody who can tell one end of a phase inverter from the other. My name is Governor O-al Ruk MeiZar. I'm here to welcome you, on behalf of the inhabitants of Seron Dala."

"Oh. Well… er… Thank you. We're… honoured." There was something very precise about the way the darker alien spoke, even when he was so apparently lost for words.

Governor MeiZar wondered in secret what kind of engineer would go racing across the stars without first taking time to be sure he had the proper equipment, especially with the stories he'd heard - about scaly grey warriors patrolling the outer reaches of Seron space. But he allowed the thought to pass him by. Resisting the urge to comment was a useful skill for any politician, and doubtless their reasoning was valid.

"In the meantime," said U-an, whose warm smile hardly seemed practised at all. "You shall be our guests. Stay as long as you wish, and make our home your own."

"You're too kind," the taller man assured her. "Even so, we _will_ need to be on our way as soon as possible."

"Indeed." But MeiZar's curiosity was piqued, and this time he could not hold it inside. "If you don't mind me asking, where is it that you plan to go?"

The pair exchanged a nervous glance. For a moment they appeared to be struggling for an answer, and when their reply finally came, each tripped over the other in a rapid, faltering stream.

"Uh…"

"We, er…"

"It's a secret."

"Absolutely. Top secret."

"Couldn't possibly say."

"That is, we…"

"Can't say. I understand," concluded MeiZar. The game of concealment and double bluff had never been one that he particularly cared to play. He knew that several others in his government felt differently. But as far as he was concerned, it was all more than a little pointless. As long as he and his people remained safe, and his planet relatively undisturbed, passing aliens could be as secretive as they liked. Still, he could not stop himself from reflecting that here was an odd pair of travellers to be involved in anything that would need to be concealed.


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as their visitors were out of sight, Governor MeiZar dismissed his remaining staff, and turned his attention to U-an.

"What do you think?"

For a long time, there was silence, interrupted only by the whisper of a quietly meandering breeze. U-an stared at a distant point in front of her, revealing nothing in the supple curve of her spine, or the expression etched across her pale and slender face.

The governor held back a smile as his youngest advisor pushed a strand of long indigo hair away from her eyes. She was so controlled in almost every way, but had never been quite able to tame her own thick, tangled mane. Of course, it was of no help at all that the customs of her clan discouraged the use of many personal adornments, even when it was most practical.

Finally, U-an spoke. Her voice was thoughtful, soft and low. "I'm not sure," she told MeiZar. "There's certainly _something_ unusual, but… This is the first ever encounter we've had with their species. Who's to say for sure that they aren't all this way?"

"Perhaps." MeiZar returned his focus to the now abandoned vessel.

"With permission, Sir, I'd like to invite our new friends to supper."

The old man stared at her, eyes wide, and found that he was unable to suppress an urge to tease. "Do you need my permission to entertain house guests, U?"

She laughed, a sound that reminded him of younger days. "I suppose not."

Finally stepping away from the alien craft, MeiZar reciprocated her soft chuckle. "But we _are_ still on for lunch tomorrow, aren't we?"

"I wouldn't miss it, Sir." U-an's eyes always sparkled when she smiled. "Should I bring the drinks this time?"

* * *

"I cannot help you." A tall and slender dark haired man meandered around the near empty mess hall, calmly scrutinising everything around him - from the replicator, to the bulkheads, to the crimson fabric on the shoulders of Sisko's uniform. "And even if I did know the answer to your question, the Dominion has not authorised me to trade in information."

"The Dominion never authorised you to trade in tulaberries either," Sisko reasoned. It was not the first time he'd heard this particular song. "And they really oughtn't object. We're not asking for anything that's likely to cause them harm."

His visitor pressed a hand to the back of a nearby chair, as if to test its strength. "I do not have the information you require."

"I think you do," said the captain. "I've spent enough time with our mutual friend, Quark, to have learnt that there's precious little profit in knowing nothing, and much more in simply pretending not to know. There may even be a Rule of Acquisition or two…"

He paused, waiting for a response, which failed to come. Finally he took a deep inward breath, and spoke again.

"I'm beginning to suspect, Mister Ornithar, that you aren't as loyal to the Founders as you _claim_ to think you are."

Straightening his back, the pale merchant answered in an especially clipped and cultured tone that Sisko had come to recognise as simmering irritation. "I am as loyal as anyone can be when those who demand my loyalty could very well annexe my home world on a whim."

"Just as I thought." The captain rose to his feet. His voice came out low and even, something close to a whispered growl. "The Federation and the Karemma have maintained a good trade arrangement, haven't they?"

There was silence from across the table, but he could tell that Ornithar was listening. Sisko allowed just a touch of sweetened nightshade to creep into his speech.

"And this will continue for as long as I continue to recommend it. But it would be a gesture of goodwill on your part to tell us what you know. After all, what harm can it do? You're already on my ship. Either way, whether you say anything or whether you don't, the Founders are highly unlikely to find out much more than that."

* * *

"Have you found anything?" asked Benjamin. The moment Ornithar's ship disappeared into the distance, he'd reached a decision, and hurried to meet up with Dax in Engineering.

She looked up from where she'd been hunched over a small display - probably for the entire time he was with the Karemma, if he knew her at all. The concentrated, thoughtful frown did not leave her eyes as they focused immediately on the captain's.

"Aside from that I'd appreciate a proper Science laboratory on the next ship that Starfleet sends us?" she joked. "No ground-breaking discoveries so far. You?"

"Funny you should mention it, Old Man." A brief, excited grin flashed across Ben Sisko's face at the chance to release the words he'd been longing to say. It was quickly lost behind a mask of hard determination, but not quickly enough to have escaped the notice of his long time friend.

He ignored her wry expression. "You know, I may have managed to find us a lead after all. Come with me. I'll tell you on the way."


	10. Chapter 10

_One thing's for certain_, Julian thought at his very first glimpse of the multitude of officials waiting all around them. He'd never imagined that they would be met with such a fully formal reception. There had been so many of them, their formation so precise, so clearly pre-arranged. He wondered with no small amount of confusion if this was how the Federation's first contact procedures seemed to visiting aliens arriving at Deep Space Nine, especially those arriving after such an eventful journey.

Did their palms feel as coldly sweaty as his did at that moment? Did their hearts pound as fast and hard? And did they also arrive feeling equally speechless, startled, and perhaps even a little giddy?

As he and Miles were ushered away, he risked a nervous glance behind him at where the broken vehicle rested on its landing pad - still, lonely, and abandoned. It had been cramped within, sure. There would have been barely enough space for even a Ferengi to stand fully upright. But none of that prepared him for how remarkably small the shuttle appeared from without. Its metallic sides were slightly dented, streaked with the scars of what looked like burn marks. It reminded him of the soot from one of those nineteenth century Victorian chimneys. Whatever those were, they were ancient - the legacy of long ago singed or possibly oxidised metal.

_She really is a rusty old can, isn't she_?

But Julian did not dare to look back for too long. He was still accompanied - and no doubt closely watched - by a trio of the same stern faced, lilac clad youths who had been standing to attention beside their damaged shuttle. They bore no evidence of weapons. But at the same time, it was easy to recognise the hardened stares of what could only have been the local military.

Their guides, or guards - or whatever they were supposed to be - led O'Brien and Bashir to a well lit room, where smooth plaster extended all the way from floor to ceiling and where everything appeared to have been deliberately set at precise right angles: Accurate to the degree of a hair. Even the slender-backed greenery standing by the opposite wall had a distinctly straightened edge.

Stepping back at the entrance, their lead escort indicated with a silent, controlled gesture that the newcomers were to continue through it.

Julian's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?" he wanted to know.

"Procedure," insisted the young Seron man, his reply level and not at all fazed by Julian's suspicion. "It's exactly the same for all new arrivals."

Exchanging a none-too-subtle glance with Miles, Julian worried that all this procedure and formality would give them scant hope for a brief pit stop at Seron Mu. And what else might these people expect of them before the day was out?

* * *

At just about waist height, slightly to the left of the room's exact centre, two oddly rectangular bowls had been set upon a long table. Each was filled with what looked like an array of assorted colourful fruit - red, yellow, green, swirling purple. None of it was familiar.

Bashir crossed the carpeted floor, where he reached forward with one hand. "Julian. Don't touch that!" shouted O'Brien. His friend spun around to face him.

For a moment, Bashir just stared. His expression was startled, eyes wide open with surprise, and he still held tightly to one of the exotic, egg-shaped delicacies. "I wasn't about to eat it," he promised, against Miles' look of profound scepticism.

And then a peculiar grin spread across the young man's face. "You mean you really thought…?"

"Look, forget I said anything."

But instead of heeding his companion's words, Bashir raised his free hand to settle upon his own chest. "You were worried about me?" he teased. "Why, thank you, Miles. I'm touched."

"You're touched, right enough," growled O'Brien. "I already said forget it. Just eat the bloody thing, for all I care."

Placing the unknown fruit into its original position, the doctor ran a tricorder over the bowl and its contents. "It seems edible…" he muttered. But then he frowned. Tucking the device back into his belt, he moved to the edge of the room, to what looked like a long, white, oblong bench.

As he seated himself upon it, Julian folded his hands across his knees and looked around. There was a new expression on his face - agitated, troubled, a little shifty. O'Brien watched him, and realised he understood exactly what kind of edgy impatience had caused the sharp furrows now forming on the doctor's brow.

But he decided that the best idea was not to comment. For the moment, at least.

"You're not hungry?" said a voice at the open doorway. The woman standing by the entrance was instantly recognisable, from the supple curve of her spine, and even more so from the striking colour of her long, thick hair - somewhere between satin blue, deep burgundy, and dark raven black. It changed with every movement as light shifted across it, and trembled slightly in the near imperceptible indoor breeze.

Her voice had been deep, clear and husky - and pleasant, like a finely tuned cello. By way of explanation, she pointed to the as yet unconsumed selection of fruit on the table. "You haven't touched a thing."

"Not very hungry at the moment, no," O'Brien lied. "But thanks anyway."

He wondered if these people's stomachs also rumbled as persistently when they hadn't eaten since last night's supper. And even that had been nothing very nutritious. He'd lost his appetite half way through.

_There's gonna be hell to pay when Keiko gets back_, he recalled himself thinking. Still, that did not stop him from missing her smile. And the woman in the doorway had an uncannily similar expression to that of O'Brien's wife.

"Well, everything in this room is yours to use just as you like." She swept a hand in a broad arc across her chest. "So do please help yourselves."

She bowed, suddenly formal, and entirely in control. "And now to my own business here. My name is U-an, chief advisor to Governor MeiZar. I would be honoured if you would join me for dinner on this night."


	11. Chapter 11

This was the fourth time in fifteen minutes that Quark had ascended the stairs to the upper level of his Establishment, with the express purpose of complaining about the continued presence of Commander Michael Eddington. He'd already shouted, cajoled, bemoaned his lost profits, and cited more Rules of Acquisition than Eddington had known to exist in the entire compendium of Ferengi philosophy. _If he offers me a bribe_, the Security officer thought. _I'll take it. Just to shut him up_. The constantly high pitched whine was already causing his head to throb.

And now Quark seemed to be going for the direct approach.

"May I ask which one of you will be _paying_ for the time you spend poking those… _things_ into my holosuite? I charge by the minute, in case you're not aware. And what am I supposed to tell the pair of Yridians downstairs? They're still waiting for their reservation, and if there's one thing you don't want on your hands it's an impatient Yridian…"

_Or a Ferengi with financial issues_.

"Offer them a free drink or something," Eddington said dismissively, feeling the constriction of his early morning headache grow steadily more painful.

"Oh? I'll put it on your tab then, shall I?"

"Frankly, Quark. I don't care where you put it."

"Two complimentary Yridian Ales, courtesy of Mister Eddington. Coming right up." Sarcasm practically dripped from the bartender's sharpened, yellowing fangs. But at least he finally disappeared.

Barely even the start of Commander Eddington's shift, and it was already looking like a long, slow, and unbearably trying day. He was supposed to be in bed. He was _supposed_ to be still recovering from that nasty strain of Tolosian flu that had been spreading around the station. And he was beginning to suspect that he would have had an easier time recovering on the Defiant instead of having to stay behind.

_Which I suppose is what you get for volunteering to return to work a full day early_.

He'd thought it would be easier once he found himself something to do. There was always so little to occupy his mind when simply lying around in bed all day. And worse, it had been four days now since Doctor Bashir had taken the rather drastic measure reserved for his most stubborn and difficult patients - hiding everything save for Michael Eddington's pyjamas, and removing the patterns from his replicator database to prevent him from fashioning another uniform.

Eddington had had to call at the quarters next door and politely beg the rather flustered man who answered if he could - _Please. Possibly _- just quickly use his replicator, and no this was certainly not how it appeared. Although exactly how it must have appeared to his slack-jawed neighbour was not something he wished to contemplate _ever_ again.

_It's just one thing after another, isn't it_? he found himself thinking, and barely restrained a frustrated sigh. _Somebody get me away from this godforsaken place_.

But there was still a job to be done - no time to allow his mind to wander. Rubbing his eyes with the fingers of one hand, he used the other to unhook a hard-edged tricorder from over his belt. Flipping it open, Eddington scanned the walls around him, and frowned.

"That's strange."

"What is?" asked the slightly rotund Bajoran deputy working at his side.

"These readings…"

The deputy stepped closer, peering over Eddington's right hand shoulder. He stared for a moment at his own tricorder display, and flicked his gaze back and forth as if to make a comparison. "I don't see anything," he said eventually.

"Look there." The commander pointed to his own tricorder. The difference was so subtle, even he had missed it the first few times around. Tucked beneath the usual readings was a barely discernable unfamiliar pattern. Had it been a sound, he reflected, it would have been a whisper in a crowded room. But the discrepancies were so obvious - now that he'd seen them - that he found himself wondering how they could have been missed. After all, being distracted by Quark was hardly an excuse.

He was still a little groggy, head throbbing uncomfortably with every step. But he ignored the nagging pressure on his nose and eyes. Telling the other man to keep up with his search for clues, he hurried away through the doors. Now that he finally had something verifiable, the very next step would be to make sure that it reached the captain.

* * *

There was fresh wine on the table, sweet and tangy, and the colour of watermelons. And next to that was an assortment of crisp, watery leaves which were not unlike a darker shade of lettuce. At the other side was a plate of something that looked very much like cheese, but smelt and tasted more like thick-skinned berries.

Given their earlier reception, Julian Bashir had to confess, he'd expected that night's dinner to be something equally formal. But the apartment was empty save for himself, Miles, U-an, and her wary younger brother - apparently one of the engineers who had been assigned to help Miles with his repairs.

Nor-an was slender, raven-haired, pale and youthful, and spent much of the evening scowling openly at their guests as if he thought that neither one could possibly ever notice. It was not an unreasonable assumption. Many of his darkest glares were more than half hidden behind a fringe of black hair almost as thick and tangled as his sister's.

"Family is very important to us here," U-an was telling them. "And especially to our clan. There was never any question of us caring for each other once our parents had passed to the next place. Besides, I am proud of Nor-an. He is a good engineer, and with a little more experience of the world, he should do very well."

The Chief did not appear to disagree. _Which is saying something_, thought Julian. But Nor-an continued to scowl.

U-an was either not noticing - or most likely ignoring - the expression on her brother's face. "So what is it you do, Mister… uh…?"

"Bashir," he told her. "I'm a doctor actually."

"_Doctor_ Bashir, then." She sounded impressed. Noting the slightly exasperated frown that now marked Chief O'Brien's features, Julian struggled to keep his own entirely straight. But he could not prevent a barely audible cough from forming at the base of his throat. Some of the muscles around his mouth had already started to twitch, and Miles' irritated expression was momentarily transformed into an open glare.

Thinking quickly, Julian made a show of wiping his mouth with an available napkin, but he knew that his own look of amusement was no better concealed.

"It must be amazing," U-an exclaimed. "It really is so rare for us to get off-world visitors in this system. And as I am sure you will have guessed by now, we ourselves have never been great explorers. But to travel the galaxy…" For a moment, her distinctly wide eyes sparkled with excitement.

"It certainly can get interesting," Bashir commented.

At his sister's other side, Nor-an was chewing on his bottom lip. "An engineer. And a doctor," he muttered. "Getting lost on a supply run? Why would you…?"

"Medical supplies." Bashir cut him off, and felt vaguely proud of this particularly quick witted piece of improvisation.

But the gloomy youth was not so easy to convince. "I never saw any medical supplies on your ship when we…"

"Nor-an," the tall young woman scolded him. "This is an evening meal, not an interrogation. Don't pester our guests."

The pair exchanged heated words in a language which was beyond the ability of Julian's translator to fathom. It ended with a harsh command from U-an and a moody silence from the adolescent at her side. His scowl was enough to match even the darkest of Chief O'Brien's.

"You'll have to excuse my brother," U-an said. She reached across to pour four more glasses of the sweet, pink wine. "He does occasionally get rather _carried away_."

The last words were accompanied by a pointed stare at her pale faced younger sibling, who glowered.

"Well?"

"I'm sorry," he grumbled.


	12. Chapter 12

Miles was just as hungry at U-an's dinner as he had in that place he'd secretly dubbed "the waiting room", but again, with little true desire to eat. "I have to get back to the repairs," he told her. "As soon as possible. Is there any chance…?"

"Well, certainly," their hostess replied. "But why the rush?"

"There'll be people after us." Something in Bashir's voice cut through their conversation like a blade. It was low and ominous. Certain. Even the scowl on the face of U-an's teenage brother was briefly replaced by an expression of genuine surprise.

The young woman paused to study Julian's face, which was quietly thoughtful, eyes gazing past the table and marked by a series of small furrows in the space between his brows. "Are you sure?" she asked.

Miles looked up as well, and realised instantly that yes, Julian _was_ sure. The doctor nodded. "Our people?" he said. "They'll be coming."

* * *

"Well, according to our friend Mister Ornithar," Captain Sisko was telling everyone who listened on the Defiant's bridge. "Some of his people _did_ spot a Federation shuttle craft passing them by. They didn't follow it, but they were quite certain in which direction it was going."

"And are they sure it was a Federation ship?" asked Jadzia Dax.

Sisko paused, but only for a moment. "They've been able to recognise Federation signatures for quite some time," he said. "He was sure."

He looked up, and suddenly there was a momentary shade of worry behind his eyes.

"What is it?" Again, it was Dax who was quickest to ask.

"You should know," the captain told them all. "This was not all the Karemma managed to discover. Ornithar tells me the shuttle they saw was also quite badly damaged. _But_ - and this is important - I'm not prepared to assume the worst without some damn solid evidence. And neither should any of you. Is that clear?"

* * *

"You're not really on a supply run, are you?" Nor-an snatched the Chief away from his stream of introspective thoughts.

He'd been working hard at the repairs, and had the ache in his arms to prove it. They were more than half complete - unless something else should decide to break in the meantime, he reminded himself. _Don't tempt fate_.

With help from three of the local engineers - although now there was only Nor-an - he'd managed to restore the structural integrity, and even conjure up a little more shield capacity while he was at it. They hadn't quite gotten around to sealing the place where SaiNor claimed to have seen a plasma leak, but that was unlikely to be very difficult to do. Even Julian had found enough good sense, _somewhere_, to keep out of their way for a while.

All told, it wasn't such a bad situation to find himself in. But there was still Nor-an.

"Why _are_ you here? Really?"

"Never mind that." O'Brien discovered that he was snapping irately. And little wonder. The constant questions were growing increasingly distracting. "Just hand me one of those power decouplers, won't you?"

The youth remained where he was, and glared.

"The sooner you _do_…" Now O'Brien's words were tight and slow, with a definite sharp edge to them. After all, wasn't this pale young man supposed to be helping? "The sooner we can be on our way. Entirely out of your hair. Never to darken your doorstep again. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"And you can keep your eyes off my sister!"

"_What_?" O'Brien jerked upwards - too far, too quickly - and felt a burst of dull pain as his head collided with the topmost edge of the panel.

_Careful_, he warned himself, rubbing the place where his skull continued to throb. _You don't want to be seeing the look on Julian's face if you wind up with a concussion. Whatever else happens, just don't you give him the satisfaction_.

This was reason enough to rise more cautiously when next he shifted out of position. "What are you talking about - your _sister_? Look, I'm sure she's a very… That is, she… I mean, I have absolutely no interest in…"

"I've heard the stories," insisted Nor-an, each word louder and more forceful than the last. "Aliens used to come here all the time, in the old days. They would take Seron women, sometimes even boys, and we would never hear from them again."

He straightened, back tense, dark eyes fierce and determined. "Well if that's what you're here for then you're not taking U-an. I'm stronger than I look, you know. And I'll fight you if I have to…"

"Listen, friend," said O'Brien, just as forcefully. "I can promise you now. When we do leave, it _will_ be without your sister."

Nor-an paused, and blinked, and the tension in his shoulders suddenly deflated. When next he spoke, his voice was soft, and all power had gone from his challenge. "You swear it?"

"Scout's Honour." Seeing the young man's look of sudden confusion, Miles O'Brien sighed, and raised his frustrated gaze momentarily to the ceiling. "That means I swear."

In the long silence, Nor-an seemed to study every groove along the surface of his decoupler. He bowed his head, concealing his face behind the same thick fringe, and chewed contemplatively, irritably on his bottom lip. Looking up again, his eyes pleaded. "Then might I ask one more favour?"

No harm in asking, Miles reminded himself.

"Go on."

"It's just, I… I promised U-an that I wouldn't say anything. And…"

"It'll be our little secret," O'Brien assured him, and raised his right hand for extra measure. Although still watching with no small degree of caution, the teenager visibly relaxed.

"Thank you."

"No problem," O'Brien replied. "And now that's sorted, any chance of a little help over here?"

* * *

The star chart was wide enough to touch both walls and tall enough to extend all the way from the floor to the high, flat ceiling - easily twice as far as Julian could reach even with both arms outstretched. Although entirely smooth to the touch - without so much as a hairline scratch to mar the perfect, crystal-hard plane - the illusion of depth behind it was remarkable. _Some kind of Two-D holoprojection_? he wondered, staring.

Every star was bright upon its surface, which gleamed a deep, reflective black. The farthest of them appeared to sink behind the wall, as though too distant for him to reach even if he _had_ felt the urge to try.

Close to certain that Miles would evict him if he came too close to the shuttle, and to the Chief's repairs, he had been restless and aimless. That was, until MeiZar eagerly offered him a tour of the central facility.

"The wormhole…?" murmured Bashir. A tiny, swirling image of blue and near-white violet peered back at him. "You know about the wormhole?"

"We have known for some fifty years," MeiZar replied.

Bashir was impressed. _That's a lot longer than we ever did_. But then he left the image behind, his interest taken somewhere else entirely. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a cluster of lights at the bottom right hand corner of the chart.

"That…" The governor paused. His normally steady gaze drifted to one side as though attempting to avoid the particular area of his map. But it was easy to see from his shifting eyes, his tense and nervous hands, and a subtle clenching of the muscles in his throat. This man was not at all short on answers.

_He just doesn't want to tell_, Julian thought. Straightening his back once more, he turned to face the older man.

"Governor? Is something…?"

"We call it the Whirlpool." An answer was offered, but only after a long, uneasy silence. _Whispered_ may have been a far more fitting way to describe the sound that finally emerged from MeiZar's lips. Or possibly even a little _choked_. But now that it had been spoken, the single word hovered between them, heavy and portentous like an unseen shadow. MeiZar broke the silence with a soft, throaty cough, and shook his head as if to clear it.

"Believe me," he said, apparently rediscovering his voice. "Wherever else you go, you don't want to find yourself caught in there."

"Why not?" Frowning quietly, Bashir moved in closer. Perhaps he had missed something in the details from further away. But even after he'd examined it again, there was nothing discernibly special about this section of MeiZar's map - no more so than any other randomly positioned star cluster. And yet he could not help but be drawn towards it, like a moth to a lighted flame.

It was the smallest of voices at the very back of his mind, reminding him of MeiZar's warning. Some of the most attractive lures were often attached to hidden traps. But even this thought did little to quell his rising certainty.

_This is it_, Julian told himself, and the excitement of his discovery was enough to squash every remaining doubt. _You've found it - exactly where you need to be_.

"It's a graveyard," the governor replied, his voice now laden with incredulity. "As far as any of my people have heard, no-one alive can claim to know exactly what's inside. It's never been explored up close, and even probes have failed to give us any signal. I don't know of a single ship that's managed to find its way back out again."

"Here be Dragons."

"Beg pardon?" MeiZar frowned.

"Never mind." The tiniest of smiles passing briefly across his lips, Julian stepped back and focused with some effort on forcing his eyes away from the speckled tones of the star chart; _away from the Whirlpool_.

The governor's expression was overlaid with a hefty share of confused vexation.

"It's just something that sailors back on Earth… uh - my home world… used to say," Julian explained. At least this question could be somewhat answered.

"I'll take your word for it." The old man's reply was clipped and hasty. But uncertainty was as clear in his voice as it had showed in his eyes.

Watching the long internal debate that shifted over Governor MeiZar's face, Julian found himself wondering if he ought to say more. But he was already too excited, distracted, trembling with impatient anticipation. He fought to suppress a grin of triumph. As soon as their repairs were done, he knew exactly the direction that he and Miles would take.


	13. Chapter 13

"Captain." Whatever the others' response to Sisko's latest news might have been, it was interrupted by a tiny young Starfleet woman who swivelled around to face them - although her wide, ebony eyes were now entirely directed at Sisko. "There's a message for you on subspace. It's coming from the station."

She paused to double check. "Commander Eddington."

"Eddington?" repeated Sisko. A momentary thought flashed through his mind. _Hold on. Wasn't he supposed to be on sick leave_?

With his brows slightly raised, he pressed one set of fingertips thoughtfully against the other, and came to an immediate decision. "Put him through."

The Ensign nodded. She pressed a button, and the view screen abruptly came to life.

The typically pale face of DS9's Chief of Federation Security was underlaid with a subtle greenish hue beneath his skin. The gleam of sweat still clung to his cheeks and forehead, but his level blue eyes were nonetheless confident enough to match the captain's own.

"I thought you were supposed to be off sick," Ben Sisko admonished him before he had a chance to speak.

"Believe me," the Commander replied. "After a day spent poking around empty holosuites and listening to tales of Quark's financial burdens, a large part of me wishes I still were." He paused a moment to gather his thoughts, but his steady gaze did not falter.

"I may have something to interest you, Captain," he said.

"What is it?"

"I'm sending you the latest scan results as we speak," came the reply. "We've been far more thorough this time, extending our scans as far as the quantum level. But I think you'll find that the most interesting material isn't in the surface patterns themselves. If you turn to the layer directly underneath…"

Sisko watched the data stream as if flowed like a river across the nearest display. He frowned. There was nothing unusual that he could see, nothing at all to catch his attention.

He was about to say so when - at his right - Jadzia Dax snatched a sharp and sudden breath. She edged closer to her own small console. For a moment she barely seemed to notice the other faces watching her, in spite of being a mere three or four steps distant from the captain's chair. Her brow was furrowed, but her eyes gleamed with rapt excitement. "Now that _is _interesting."

_She's found herself a puzzle_, Sisko thought wryly. _There'll be no stopping her now_.

Always least able to remain silent for very long, Kira Nerys half glared across the bridge. "Care to let the rest of us in on this big secret of yours?"

"These patterns," said Dax, sounding barely able to keep the thrill from her voice. "They're almost identical to the ones I found on that device we took from Quark's."

She turned to the captain. "I'd already been working on isolating these same anomalous patterns when you called me to the bridge."

"You never told me this," Sisko half scolded her.

"I was waiting until I had something more concrete to tell."

_Hedging her bets_. He nodded. It was a prudent enough move.

"Captain," Dax was telling him. "There still might be. I was already close to success before, and with this new information I'm certain that…"

"Get onto it," he conceded, and returned his attention to the screen. "Good work, Mister Eddington. Don't hesitate to call if you discover anything else."

"Thank you, Sir." A smile crept across the man's tight, pallid face.

With a nod of acknowledgement, Ben Sisko leaned forward a fraction and deliberately arranged his expression into the sternest possible glare.

"But I want _you_ back in bed by the end of the day," he rumbled. "That's an order."

"Aye, Captain," agreed Eddington. His reply was exhausted, but good natured enough. He sighed.

"Good," the captain told him without releasing the other man from his captivating scrutiny. "Sisko out."

* * *

Miles O'Brien grumbled wordlessly, and tensed the muscles along his back as a token protest against the doctor's attempt to shake him from bed. But the truth was, he was far from certain that there was sleep to be found that night, any more than there had been on the previous one. Groaning and scowling as darkly as the situation seemed to require, he channelled the greater part of his energy into the gargantuan task of rolling upright. He sat for a moment, propping himself against the bed on tired and aching arms.

With a heavy sigh, he gathered the rest of his gradually accumulating strength and sent the cause of this disturbance what he hoped was a dangerous, soul withering glare. The problem with that, of course, was that it never had any real effect. From their very first meeting, Julian had always been either impervious or otherwise completely immune to his friend's most soul withering glares.

"Come with me," he whispered.

The corridor was narrow, well carpeted, and dry. But after the snugly enshrouding comfort of a warm bed, it was still a little too cold for Miles' liking. He was following Bashir, moving quickly through their oddly quiet surroundings as much for the heat this exercise provided as for the steadily forward progress.

Every noise was muffled by the hard although slightly rubbery material that lined the walls and ceiling. O'Brien glanced regretfully around him. He may have been far from sleepy, but Seron beds were entirely more comfortable than a night hunched beneath half spent control panels. Some distant physical memory was already making him reluctant to leave this comfort behind. Although, given a choice between lying awake and staring at shadows, and allowing his feet a chance to do something useful, he was secretly glad for that second option.

All considered however, he did still have an image to maintain. He kept the scowl upon his face, determined not to let the brash young doctor suspect that he was even partly grateful.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Miles hissed, injecting a degree of tension into his voice. And Bashir's reply was equally hushed and tight.

"MeiZar showed me his Stellar Cartography lab - I know it's around here somewhere. I just need to check on something first, and then we can be on our way.

"On our way where?"

"You'll see."

O'Brien's jaw tightened. "Julian…"

"You'll _see_!"

"But I haven't even finished the repairs," Miles protested, somewhat irately.

"So?" A flash of excitement passed across his companion's eyes. "We fix the ship, then we leave."

"We?"

"Think of it as _your_ chance to order _me_ around." Julian's voice carried traces of a smile. "Or if you like, I'll just be on standby for the next time you accidentally bump yourself against one of the bulkheads."

This time there was nothing even slightly feigned about Chief O'Brien's answering growl.


	14. Chapter 14

Finally. They were on their way.

Julian was relieved to discover that many of the shudders and tremors that had marked the initial part of their journey were no longer in evidence. He was not quite ready to relax - _not yet_, his instinct was telling him. But he could already sense that they were once again headed in the right direction.

He could feel the forward pull, like the tug of an invisible line around both wrists. It had taken the two of them far less time than expected to finish what remained of the repairs. And in spite of Chief O'Brien's protestations to the contrary, the shuttle was thankfully much quieter on take off than it had been when they first entered the system.

"So," Julian ventured. "Did those friends of yours manage to re-establish our warp capability?"

"I'd say they did," was the Chief's slightly gruff reply, as they passed above the atmosphere of Seron Mu's fourth planet. "I could've used some extra time to run diagnostics, mind. But… How about we put it to the test? Now's as good a time as any."

Julian paused to consider. "Not yet," he said. "Wait until we clear the system."

"You might want to think about what to tell the Serons, then." Miles nodded at the console, where a steady light had begun to blink and flash.

Pushing through a sudden wave of guilt, Bashir allowed his breath to escape slowly through his narrow lips. He flicked the same switch as before, and the unattached voice of SaiNor was quick to reach them over the open channel.

"_This is Planetary Ground Control to the alien vessel. Please respond_."

"Oh. Hello." Bashir focused on keeping his voice cheerful. _Don't these people ever sleep_? He found himself wondering. "Come to wish us luck?"

"_Alien vessel_." There was a pause. "_Stand by_. _Our governor desires to speak with you_."

_I suppose they don't_, thought Julian. Miles' brows were also raised in a wordless echo of the thoughts already in both their minds. Either MeiZar had been woken especially for this impromptu conference, or they had just stumbled on an entire race of chronic insomniacs. Well, they'd bluffed their way here. They could bluff their way out again.

"Governor?"

There was a short, tension filled pause, until Julian started to wonder if there really was anyone at the other end of the comm. Then MeiZar's voice finally spoke. It was remarkably low and tight. "_Tell me that you're not going to the Whirlpool_," he said. "_Please_."

Julian ignored his companion's questioning stare. "I'll tell you all about it on our way back," he promised.

But the governor cut him off in his haste to respond. "_Turn around now_," the old man exclaimed. "_I'll offer you an escort to our planet's surface, or even back to the passage. Whatever it is you fear, our people can protect you. But not to the Whirlpool. You haven't a chance_."

"I'm sorry, Governor." It was O'Brien who replied. "We did say that we couldn't stick around too long."

"_But still_…" The old man's voice now carried an undercurrent of quiet disappointment. "_I had honestly hoped to be able to say farewell_."

Bashir caught his breath, feeling the same stabbing guilt return to his chest. But he was interrupted before he could offer any apologies.

"Three Seron vessels heading directly for us," said Miles. He leaned forward, just a little. "They're charging weapons."

"What?"

"_I really must advise you to return with us_," said MeiZar. His voice was determined, although still apologetic. "_I cannot allow you to continue on this unsafe course_."

"Actually, Chief." Julian lowered his own voice to a conspiratorial hiss. "I'm beginning to think you may be right. This is a pretty good time to test that warp drive after all."

* * *

It was an unusual experience for Odo, to find himself on the bridge of the Defiant. Not unheard of, of course - he'd been there already several times before. But he was always far more at ease in situations where he could find a customary place for himself, and remain there throughout the course of his attendance.

There seemed to be plenty of such places on the Defiant. For everybody else, that was, except Odo. Technically, he was supposed to be in charge of _station_ security, and station security rarely extended to the safety of travelling battleships. Moreover, he noted in secret, it had been his observation while watching the often barely comprehensible behaviour of humanoids that they could be - and very often _were_ - fiercely territorial about the strangest things.

Odo hadn't expected this peculiarity to extend to the bridge of a Federation starship. But with the rather eccentric tendency displayed - especially by Humans - to anthropomorphise certain clearly non-sentient objects, he supposed he shouldn't have been too surprised.

"Captain," said Major Kira. His thoughts interrupted, Odo saw her glance up, almost straight ahead, at whatever it was the display was showing her. "Did you know anything about a planetary system in this area?"

"I did," said Odo. He had sensed the darker man's hesitation, and did not wait for the predictable response. All faces turned his way.

Even now, the constable was at the outer edge of the scene. He stood like a pillar, arms folded tight across his roughly fashioned torso. Without an accustomed position, he was still more than slightly awkward. Out of place. And he had moulded his stance to match this inner unease.

"That is," he continued, unhindered. "Since the day when I first discovered the origins and location of my people, I have dedicated what might be considered a significant effort to studying all known records of the various… peculiarities which may be found within the Gamma Quadrant. If I am not mistaken, the space we are heading towards is known to the Dominion, although not in fact within their borders."

"Well _that's_ good to know, anyway," commented Kira. Odo nodded briefly in her direction, but kept on with the same continuous reasoning as if no-one else had even spoken.

"However," he rasped. "The system _is_ home to a small population of space faring humanoids. They seem to have developed basic warp technology, but there is little likelihood that they ever venture far from their own system. I would surmise that this is the most likely place to which a ship in distress would turn."

"There's nothing on any Starfleet database about inhabited planets here," Sisko reflected, eyebrows raised. "Dare I ask where you discovered this information, Constable?"

Odo kept his gaze as steady as he could make it. "I am a resourceful man, Captain," he replied.

"We're approaching the outer planets," said the brown eyed ensign, cutting short whatever Sisko's answer might have been.

And now the passing look of irony was gone from the captain's face. "Drop the cloak," he told Major Kira.

"Sir?" She swivelled around, her consternation as clear as the dark gleam of her eyes.

"Is there a problem, Major?" the captain asked, a touch of a challenge behind his level voice.

Kira stared, as though debating whether to believe that she had even heard the question. "If the Dominion…"

"I'm aware of that," Sisko told her. "But I'd rather we didn't take these people by surprise - not if I can help it. Too much depends on making a good first impression."

He nodded sharply in Kira's direction. "Do it."

They drifted past the outer edge of the system as quietly as a leaf upon a stream. The lights brightened a little as the cloak was disengaged and in the silence that followed, Odo allowed himself a moment of secret mirth. He watched Kira Nerys as she tapped her fingers impatiently on the console. They'd known each other for longer than anyone else on board, and Odo especially knew how much she'd always hated waiting.

A brief but palpable glint in Sisko's eye was enough to indicate that he had noticed as well. It was no surprise. The sound made by Nerys' fingernails at that moment was one of the clearest on the ship.

"Relax, Major," Sisko told her from the captain's chair. "Whatever answer we receive from the locals, it will come in due course."


	15. Chapter 15

"Well done, Jadzia," Dax whispered, pausing in the midst of her work to allow herself a brief, congratulatory smile. She'd already been toiling for so many minutes that it felt like hours, working through every computer trick she knew in order to isolate the most erratic data from its source. Her head ached and throbbed, almost like the dull pain that plagued her limbs after a particularly difficult wrestling match. _The brain is just another organ, after all_, she reminded herself, and rubbed her eyes. Until that moment, she had wondered if her efforts would ever yield any quantifiable result.

Whatever else she thought of their actions, she had to admire the ingenuity of whoever had fashioned this exotic piece of technology. It worked rather like salt in water, she'd discovered, the unusual pattern dissolving almost inextricably into the background and allowing the dominant flow of computer traffic to drown its tiny voice before it could even be heard. Unless, of course, somebody should pause to listen.

_So_, Jadzia had asked herself, almost at the moment when this comparison occurred to her. _What method do you use when you want to separate two such tightly bound chemicals in a liquid solution_?

The answer came in a flash, as if the very bulkheads were shouting it in her ears. Something every first year Chemistry student knew even before they stepped through the Academy doors.

_Electrolysis_.

If she could somehow instruct the computer to behave in the same way as a pair of charged metal rods… "It might just work," she could not stop herself from exclaiming out loud.

Suddenly unable to contain her mounting excitement, Jadzia's hands moved even more rapidly in their impatience for results. Her first task was to overlay the lines she'd extracted from that peculiar device with the residual echo that Commander Eddington had found in Quark's holosuite interior. It had been clear from the beginning that these patterns were not entirely identical, but in both cases their divergence from the norm was close enough. It would be so much easier to study, once the computer had identified and strengthened the now obvious similarities.

Dax grinned in triumph as she watched the computer work. But her gleeful smile was quick to fade. "Computer," she said in a level voice. "Isolate results and save to file J-4."

It did not take the computer long to process her request. But now a shallow frown was passing across her brow, lingering like the shadow of a troubled dream. She stared at the monitor. "What _is_ that?" she hissed between her teeth, and wondered briefly if she ought to take her findings to the captain. But she quickly decided against it.

_Not yet_. If Benjamin asked, she would not hold back any basic, essential information. But at least for the moment, it was better to wait.

She would not disturb him, Dax decided. Not until she knew for _certain_ what was so familiar about those shifting, zig-zag lines.

* * *

The Defiant's sensors had garnered very little in the way of specifically useful information. There were some residual chemical traces - an echo which could have come from a damaged craft, but could just as easily have been the result of a passing meteor or even a solar flare. Sisko briefly wished that his officers could have stolen something easier to track. Like a runabout. But he could only concede that what they had seen was not enough to permit any certain conclusions. In the end, he had to confess that there was far too little for their sensors to find, and turn his attention to the planets themselves.

There was just enough data on the screen to tell him that Odo had been right. The fourth planet was indeed inhabited, with a population of some three or four million clustered unevenly around the narrow strip of its equator.

_No wonder_, thought Sisko. With the distance it kept from the chill-white star, polar ice was thickly visible over nearly half of both the planet's hemispheres. Leaning closer to the back of his chair, he pondered for a brief instant, and passed down an order to scan the surface for Humans. The scan came back negative, and Benjamin rubbed the fingers of his left hand thoughtfully against each other - as though adding that obligatory pinch of salt to a simmering pot of his aubergine stew.

_Of course_, he scolded himself. _You were hardly likely to find them with a simple scan. That would have been far too easy_.

A door slid open behind him, and all eyes were suddenly focused on the sight of somebody entering the bridge. Last to turn around, Sisko guessed before he even saw her that the newcomer would be Dax.

"Anything yet?" he asked.

The pale Science Officer shook her head. "Not much so far," she replied, then paused. "Well - not quite 'nothing'. I've managed to isolate some part of the relevant data. Now it's just a matter of interpretation…"

She moved forward, glancing up at where the icy jewel of a world seemed to glow with a sliver of reflected light. The planet answered her scrutiny with only silence. Dax nodded towards it. "What's going on?"

"Waiting for First Contact," was Benjamin's answer. He pressed his fingertips together, certain that his voice was steadier than his heart.

Dax raised both dark eyebrows. "Sounds like you've been waiting quite a while."

"Perhaps. But I have a feeling we won't be for too much longer."

"Captain." As if to confirm his words, Kira spoke clearly from where she'd been watching their exchange. "Sir, we're being hailed."

Sisko grinned at Jadzia.

"Men," Dax teased as she shifted into her own particular space. "Always so in love with being right."

"I suppose you ought to know, Commander." He responded with a dry observation of his own. "You used to be one."

* * *

The elderly man on the front view screen had glanced around the bridge at first, noting every watching face. His rapidly shifting gaze eventually turned towards Odo.

"_You are different from the others_," he commented.

"Yes," replied the constable, tensing uncomfortably. Sisko caught a trace of unease in his voice that it had taken him nearly a year to recognise with any accuracy.

The stranger nodded, acknowledging the brittle response. He then turned his attention - the noticeable part of it, anyway - towards the Defiant's captain.

"_O-al Ruk MeiZar_," he said. "_Planetary Governor of Seron Dala_."

When nobody responded, the old man spread a hand across his chest. "_That's who I am_."

"Of course." Sisko gave a small start, and ignored Jadzia's quiet smile at his side. He reached for his own oft-practised line of introduction. "I'm Captain Benjamin Sisko of the United Federation of Planets."

"_From the other side of the passage_?"

He nodded. "That's right."

"_Like the others_?"

Sisko was certain that his heart had skipped a beat. "Yes. Exactly like the others. Do you know where I might find them?"

Although MeiZar's eyes bore the tell tale marks of crows' feet at the corners, he was not smiling. "_They told us there would be more coming this way_," he said in a voice like tumbling stone. "_We've been expecting you_."

"Have you?"

The old man continued. "_They also told us that you weren't to be trusted_."

"Did they?" Sisko felt his ire rise still further.

_Those two are going to regret it_, he thought. _If I ever… So help me, I'll _make _them regret it_.

He gritted his teeth and forced a calming breath through his nose. _Not now. Remember. They still need your help._

"May I speak to them?" he asked.

"_No_," responded MeiZar.

Catching a movement at the edge of his vision, Sisko raised a hand to stop Odo before he could speak. "Governor." The captain's voice was calm, his frustration very nearly perfectly concealed. "I don't know how much they told you, or even the extent to which they are aware of it themselves. But our people, they are… not well."

The governor leaned forward slightly, hands laced together at the top of his desk. "_Not well_?" he repeated. "_In what way_?"

Sisko rubbed his chin. "Actually, I'm not exactly sure of that either." He almost winced to hear himself confess it. "The point is, I really need to speak with them before…"

_Before what_? He realised before the words had even entirely left his mouth. He still had very little idea of what he could possibly be trying to prevent.

_They're your own officers_, he reminded himself. _Hold on to that_.

"Might I make a suggestion?" He noticed that he was trying a little too hard to keep his voice even. "Perhaps it would be better to continue this discussion in person. I will leave it to you to judge how much we need to know, at least once you've heard our point of view."

Governor MeiZar's expression remained as unwavering as ever, and Sisko sighed.

"I can see you are a reasonable man, Governor." It was partly true, at least. "If just two of us could beam down to your location, it would be far easier for each side to hear what the other has to say."

The governor still appeared a little sceptical, but a slight frown was already creeping over the ridges of his brow.

"One, then," the captain conceded. "Me."

"Captain," interjected Kira, her face a study in horrified disbelief. For a moment, Sisko had come close to forgetting that anyone else was present. Now he sensed the simmering protest beneath her voice, like the quiet murmur of a pot on the boil.

"As you were, Major."

"But Captain. I really must object…"

"Your objection is noted." Sisko cut her off before it could expand into a full-voiced shout. Turning back to the view screen, he repeated his former offer. "Just me."

The governor's suspicion was close to tangible behind the shaded aquamarine of his eyes. They narrowed slightly as he paused to contemplate the captain's words. There was silence, breaths held all around, and MeiZar continued to study them warily with a sidelong, scrutinising gaze.

"_Very well_," he concluded, nodding once as though half to himself. "_I will hear you_."


	16. Chapter 16

It was just past dawn in an abandoned location, where a single pillar of sparkling energy solidified into the form of a human man, who flipped open a tricorder with a subtle, almost invisible flick of his wrist. Ben Sisko glanced about him, squirming a little until his eyes were able to adjust to the chill-bright gleam. A crisp light continued to shine through an otherwise featureless sky. But even this surreptitious survey revealed no more than his own eyes had done.

"I can understand why you may wish to subject us to your scans, Captain," said an unanticipated voice from nearby. As Sisko turned towards its source, Governor MeiZar cast a meaningful glance at his still open tricorder. To the surprise of his guest, the elderly governor stood alone. "But I promise you, it is far from necessary. We _have_ no great secrets to conceal."

It was a peculiar quirk of subspace communications that the image displayed was rarely an accurate representation of a person's true size. Everyone was either taller in person than they appeared to be on the screen - or shorter.

Governor MeiZar was definitely of the latter variety, and gave an impression more of a congenial, eccentric professor than the Serons' most powerful politician. He wore a short, barrel-shaped vest, almost Cardassian in its rigidity, and kept his hands tucked behind his back in the same post that Sisko had seen several of his own officers use upon more than one occasion.

The new visitor nodded his concession. "I apologise," he said. "I had to make one last check."

MeiZar smiled. "Because you wanted to see if we have been hiding something from you. It's always a pleasure to meet offworlders like yourselves, but you can be rather predictable at times. If there _is_ anything you wish to know, it is easy enough to ask."

"Except that you haven't answered any of our questions so far." Sisko risked a challenge.

The governor sighed through his nose before raising a hand to indicate the path in front of him. "Shall we walk?"

* * *

As he related the story of how they had come to be so close by, along with the little that Dax had managed to glean from her research, Sisko found himself in the midst of his own contemplative study, this time of the elderly governor's face.

The man's hair was thick and tangled, and dark like gathering thunderclouds - although already fringed with silver at the temples. Sisko wondered in silence if loss of colour was a universal constant in every aging humanoid. The patches of silver-grey, set beside heavy brows and a slightly plum-tinted forehead of shallow ridges made the shorter man appear oddly stern, even when his expression was neutral.

"There _was_ something peculiar about your friends, now that you mention it." Silent and thoughtful, the governor rubbed the length of a wiry tuft of hair, which was awkwardly positioned at the very centre of his chin. But he looked away from his alien guest, as though gazing at some barely defined image that only he could see. "Some of what they told us… Very strange…"

Sisko wondered if he dared prompt the old man to elaborate. But when he finally did turn back, the governor's brow was even more furrowed than was normal, in what could only have been a momentary flash of doubt.

"Very strange…" he repeated in the same low whisper. "We were certainly excited to have them here, Captain. I mean, we know about off-world strangers in far greater detail than they tend to know about us. And we remain largely undisturbed, mostly because the majority of potential invaders do not believe that we _have_ anything worth the time it would take to mount a campaign against us. To find life forms as new to us as we must be to you… It was… Quite a thrill."

"Certainly something I can relate to," commented Sisko, although he secretly wondered when the old man would reach his point.

MeiZar paused, searching every part of his expression. "Yes." He nodded. "I believe you can."

When there didn't seem to be any further observations forthcoming, he continued. "Your men came to us for repairs, Captain. And of course, we happily obliged. What they told us in the beginning was unusual, certainly, but not particularly alarming. Although hearing your story reminds me of something. Right from the start, they _did_ seem a little… agitated, shall we say? As if they were in a great hurry to get somewhere. And neither gave any indication of knowing what their ultimate destination would be."

"Did none of your people even _try_ to find out?"

Governor MeiZar turned slightly, seeming only now to spy a flicker of disapproval in the captain's dark eyes. His own gaze was piercing.

"You do not approve of the cautious reception we gave to you," he noted, with no room to interpret his words as anything but fact. "Tell me, Captain Sisko, before you pass judgement. What would you have done?"

"I'm sorry?"

But MeiZar only repeated his original question. "What would you have done, Captain?"

There was a pause.

"I'm still not certain that I fully understand," Sisko responded finally, although he was beginning to see a greater part of the governor's meaning than he felt ready to admit to.

MeiZar's eyes narrowed. "I assure you, Captain, I had no intention to cause offence - to you or anyone else aboard your vessel. First contact with other sentient species has always been as important to us as it appears to be to you. But, please consider. What would you have done if our roles had been reversed? What if _you_ had been the ones confronted with two strangers from a barely known world, and with both of them claiming to be pursued?"

"I suppose…" Sisko scratched behind his ear, and grimaced slightly through his answer. His gaze panned across the colourful cityscape, where the day was already brighter than it had been, and he spoke as much to himself as to anyone else who might have been listening. "If it had been me… I would have been just as wary as you are, especially of those who came in pursuit."

"And I would not expect anything less, if it were our people in your current position. So, you see my dilemma, surely."

"As you see mine."

The diagonal creases on MeiZar's forehead gathered even closer together into a distracted frown. He paused for a moment, nodded subtly to himself, and locked his hands once more behind his back as he continued his contemplative stroll along the gently curving balcony.

Sisko watched twin shadows of blue and violet as they passed across the old man's face, accentuating every slender line upon his skin. Both walked with an agitated countenance, far more suited to pacing than strolling. But the captain continued to match the governor's stride, following quietly by his left hand shoulder.

Finally, MeiZar stopped again and turned to gaze out over the balcony. Sisko stepped forward to join him.

"Your friends are not here," the old man confessed at length. "They expressed their intention to leave ,on several occasions. As concerns for their safety came to the fore, we made an attempt to apprehend them. But we are not accustomed to detaining travellers against their will, and ill equipped to mount a pursuit against a technologically superior vessel. Your people had already jumped to warp speed before we had a chance to stop them."

He sighed, tensing both hands still locked behind him, and rocked a little upon his heels. "That is the honest truth, Captain. As honest as I can tell it, anyhow. There _was_ another matter, though. Regarding your doctor friend… He seemed very interested in the place we call the Whirlpool."

Benjamin Sisko felt a jolt of alarm course through him, like the shock of an exposed circuit. "Why 'the Whirlpool'?" he hardly dared to ask. His voice was suddenly hoarse, but something in MeiZar's crystalline eyes compelled him. He had to know.

The governor's expression was deceptively calm, but his companion thought he detected a flash of anxiety beneath that level gaze.

"Captain Sisko, I'd have thought that would be obvious."


	17. Chapter 17

"What's the Whirlpool?" Miles whispered. There was nobody else around to hear them, but he kept his voice barely above the threshold of audibility. The interior of their craft was dim and cold, and somehow even this hushed query felt as intrusive as a full voiced shout. He felt his teeth clench at the sound.

But now, with their ship cruising at a steady medium warp, and the Serons' limited armada far behind them, Miles finally sensed that it was time to confront his friend. He leaned forward, elbows pressed against his thighs and with his hands locked tightly together, and waited for an answer.

The doctor responded with his own quietly uncertain smile. "Actually, I don't particularly know," he admitted. "But it _does_ sound quite interesting, doesn't it?"

_You're the one who's always after adventure_, O'Brien thought. Still, he could not help but confess that the idea had piqued some boyish anticipation of his own.

* * *

"Here are the co-ordinates you were after." Governor MeiZar pulled out an exotically fashioned padd, shaped especially to fit into the stiff-edged pocket of his vest. As he passed it to Captain Sisko, the tapered edge pressed roughly into both men's palms. Sisko was tentative in accepting it, but made sure to remember to thank the elderly governor.

MeiZar nodded in response, momentarily engaged in a study of his dark-faced companion. His clear, blue-green eyes suddenly lacked all trace of their previous cordiality. "Have you given any thought to what you will do once you get there?" he asked.

The captain considered his answer, lightly slapping the newly acquired padd against his open left palm. "With luck, we shouldn't have to get there," he responded, every sound deliberately paced, careful and slow. "But it's far too important that we do _not_ return empty handed. We know so little of what is really going on. And even without the question of our own internal security…"

"They're your friends," MeiZar finished for him. There was an air of finality to his voice, as if everything else that needed saying had already been said. "The padd in your hands contains all the information we have been able to gather about the Whirlpool and the space surrounding it. Our engineers have estimated that it would take somewhere from seven to nine hours for a smaller craft to cover the distance. Yours should make it in four."

His expression now softened, eyes showing a degree of mutual concern. "It was good to have met you, Captain Benjamin Sisko, of some place far away. For the sake of yourself, and your crew - and particularly for the sake of your absent friends - I hope you find that luck which you have wished for."

* * *

Dax was far from sure that it was a good idea to be confined so long to the same tiny section of Engineering, where she already had the aches to confirm every one of her multiple doubts. Surrounded by computers, overshadowed by the steady, throbbing pulse of the warp core, and largely ignored by the skeleton crew of engineers and technicians as they monitored the Defiant's restful heartbeat, she was beginning to wonder if anything really set her apart from the constantly active machinery.

But then she caught her breath, and leaned forward once more to peer at the readings on her screen.

Some of the scientific equipment that she'd seen on Federation Starships was enough to fill her with awe. Or, she often challenged herself, was it possibly something closer to envy? It was true, there were times when she regretted the Starships' departure. She had done her best to cajole O'Brien into helping her to retrofit some of their technology into her laboratory on the station. But too often, too much was incompatible, like trying to attach extra limbs to a snake. Before long, the ships themselves would fly away, leaving Jadzia sighing as though for the loss of an exquisite jewel.

But in spite of her regrets, and dreams of a gleaming, super-modern laboratory, she could not see herself wishing to be anywhere other than where she already was. While on the Defiant, she would happily content herself with an occasional trip to Engineering, where the officers around her had long since accustomed themselves to viewing her as just another part of their daily landscape.

The crewmen were still working at their assigned stations, noting every tiny fluctuation, checking the ship's gravity, heading, environmental controls, watching her rhythms as they might each breath of a quietly slumbering giant. But even here, they all left Dax basically to herself. Unlike her place on the bridge, there was nobody to interrupt the course of her thoughts, or to peer over her shoulder, demanding to be constantly updated on her progress - which was exactly what she did not need.

She'd had her suspicions from the very beginning that something was familiar - but at the same time oddly different - about those continuously fluctuating lines. But Jadzia kept on watching as they scrolled across the length of her monitor, finding herself increasingly unable to force her attention away.

The area behind her brow had even started to ache a little as the colours rose and dipped across the screen. Her pulse gathered speed, building in intensity until it beat at her chest like an old stone hammer - or perhaps a beggar pounding at the door. She could no longer escape the sudden certainty of what she'd found.

_Brainwaves._

Leaping from her chair so rapidly that she managed to startle two nearby engineers, Dax mumbled a hasty apology and hurried from the room.

* * *

"Strange." O-al Ruk MeiZar discovered quickly that the curious smile upon his face was not quite ready to disappear. Not just yet. He was sorry to see the aliens depart, however much he supposed he understood their reasons. But the one they called Sisko had left Seron Dala with a promise to return, and assured him that the first of their meetings would not be their last.

"We'll be back," the captain had sworn. "Once this is over. As soon as we manage to finish what we started."

MeiZar had reciprocated the formal but friendly expression. "It will be delightful to see you more at your leisure than you currently find yourselves."

The governor shook his head with a low chuckle, remembering how the alien man had vanished behind a shimmering white haze. Sisko's last gesture was a nod in his direction, which MeiZar had echoed without thinking. If their promise held true, there would be so many exciting things to learn about this peculiar, complicated, and yet so intriguing species. But that was a matter for another day.

The whispering breeze had barely found time to sense its own strength as, with a deep enough sigh to make his shoulders heave, Governor MeiZar turned in the other direction, readying himself to retrace his steps along the smoothly curving walkway.

His office would be waiting for him, anticipating his return. He imagined it at that moment - silent, open. Empty. Lonely and forlorn as an abandoned _Sai_-pup. There were duties within, a room already stacked full of scrolls, boxes, and many-coloured datapads, all balanced precariously in unsteady piles upon his shelves.

Every one of them would doubtless hold some new memorandum, or petition. And no doubt every one would be needing his attention well before day's end. He wondered if they had yet started tumbling to the floor. Or if there might even be some waiting official or other, eager to snatch an audience before his work could even begin.

_Well_, the governor thought as he struggled through the barrier of his own reluctance. _That was quite a diversion, wasn't it? But when it's over, it's over. Time to get back to running the bureaucracy_.

It was a fine day in the capital, although still a little brisk, and was looking to continue in just that way. Perhaps MeiZar could indulge in a pleasant outdoor stroll after the first two hours - or possibly three - of work. Walking in the garden had always been an ideal way to relax his mind, and revitalise his focus for the remainder of the morning.

And even if his chance didn't happen to come, he could still look forward to that upcoming lunch with U-an.


	18. Chapter 18

"_How_ long did you say this was going to take?"

The same irritating voice cut into O'Brien's thoughts yet again. Suddenly tense, he glowered over his left hand shoulder. They had already been travelling for longer than he cared to think about, and even in the shuttle's chilly interior, his face was hot with the flush of pins-and-needles. The silence of the past ten minutes had been oppressive enough on its own, but the noise that broke it was sufficient cause for his teeth to grind.

"It'll be another hour at least," the Chief growled. "You heard the computer."

The thought of being closed away in the same tiny space for that much longer was doing nothing to improve his own mood either - any more than it seemed to do for his travelling companion.

"And you're positive we can't get a little more speed?" continued Julian.

"Not unless you've developed a taste for falling out of hull breaches," came O'Brien's gruff retort. "I'm not a bloody miracle worker."

His next comment was more than half directed at himself. "But perhaps you'd rather see this thing break into a hundred pieces of random scrap metal."

He was fed up. Fed up with riding some tired old vessel that was even harder to manage than that bloody Cardie mess of a station - if such a thing was even possible. Fed up with the unyielding, agitated throb of blood beneath his skin. And especially, _particularly_, fed up with Julian.

Sure, the doctor must have been feeling his own share of edgy impatience. They both were. But with the constant, pulsing ache at the base of Miles' skull, every one of the other man's words chaffed his nerves like the burn of heated rope.

He nodded at Bashir's still untouched breakfast, which had been set upon the console long enough to turn to the temperature of cold rubber. "You gonna eat that or not?"

Julian took barely a second to glance at his replicated omelette, as though debating the answer with himself. A near imperceptible grimace passed across his face as, snorting angrily, he pushed the plate away.

"Not," he replied. For a moment, Miles was reminded of his own young daughter at her most belligerent.

"Then put it back in the replicator, can't you?" he growled. "It stinks."

There was acid enough in Bashir's obliging smile to burn through even the toughest adamantum alloy plating. He shifted from his chair and loped into the back room, where the remainder of his breakfast was soon floating aimlessly through the recycled air. O'Brien imagined even then that bits of egg would be drifting about in all directions, colliding with every other atom in the limited interior of their shuttle.

_Limited. Enclosed_. That was the thing, wasn't it? Stuck for hours together in a space barely half the size of a runabout. And the truth was, Miles' own poor excuse for a meal had wound up every bit as untouched as his companion's. In spite of the time he'd already spent asking himself the same repeated question, he was still far from certain that he would ever find the source of his constant discomfort. This time, at least, he could not help but sense that he would have been every bit as agitated - with or without the continued presence of Doctor Julian Bashir.

Where _was_ he, anyway?

A series of quiet, semi-metallic noises snatched O'Brien's attention away from his distracted musing. He span towards the source, realising suddenly that somebody was opening one of the aft engineering panels.

"What are you doing?" he called, even before rising to investigate.

Julian didn't look up, but his reply was clear in the confinement of the back room. "Just thought I'd take a look."

He knelt by the panel, face slightly illuminated by the circuitry within, and with his lips pursed in concentration and eyes as intently focused as Miles had ever seen them.

Chief O'Brien shook his head in frustrated despair. "There's nothing wrong with it."

"I know," was the doctor's still distracted reply. "But two heads are better than one, after all. I thought perhaps I could…"

"Will you get out of there before you break something?" interrupted Miles.

That got his friend's attention. Bashir backed away a little and looked towards him, eyes narrowed warily. "Like what?" he asked. "Don't you trust me?"

_Not particularly, no_. Miles clenched his jaw against an urge to speak this thought aloud. But the last thing he needed at that moment was a travelling companion who fancied himself something of a fix-it man.

Julian was still talking more rapidly with every breath. "There's really no need to worry, Chief. I do know something about these kind of controls. In my E--"

That was it. He'd been more than admirably restrained for too long already. But there was only so much pressure a man could take. "I swear, Julian. If I have to listen to _one more thing _about those bloody extension courses of yours… I swear, I'll… I'll…" He stopped, unexpectedly unsure of _what _it was he'd been about to swear, which only added fuel to his mounting frustration. "I'm not about to let myself be blown out to space because you suddenly decided to play D.I.Y."

And now, Julian finally stood, and stepped away. His own face revealed a spark of runaway anger. "I'm not some backward child," he accused. "Isn't it about time you realised that?"

"Oh, that's just brilliant," Miles shouted back. "And this coming from… who? Mister High and Bloody Mighty himself. Mister Great and Powerful Frontier Man. Mister Second-in-my-Class-At…"

"And what's _that _supposed to…?"

"O-_ho_. Touched a nerve, have I? Well, I've got news for you. And I promise you'll have no trouble in catching the meaning of this one. _Sir_. Some of us are not nearly half as dimwitted as you think we are. Believe it or not, I can do perfectly well on my own. Without _you_."

"Well. Certainly. Go ahead. I'm not about to stop you."

O'Brien paused, momentarily thrown by the unexpected concession. "Right, then." He stammered a little. Turning towards the bow, he pointed defiantly at Julian. "Right. Just you watch."

Angrily, he stormed away from the watching doctor.

The entire ship lurched with a sudden explosive force, which nearly knocked both men sprawling to the floor. Miles stumbled roughly against the thick dividing panel, and grunted as the breath was momentarily evicted from his lungs.

"What _was _that?" yelled Julian through clenched teeth. He clung, white-knuckled, to the back of the nearest chair.

"Do I know?" O'Brien retorted.

A second harsh impact slammed into their starboard side and sent a bone-jarring shock all the way along the floor and inner walls.

"I can tell you what _that _was," shouted Bashir above the scream of tortured metal. He managed to right himself, but released his hold on the wall only with reluctance. Chest heaving, he cast a desperate glance around him and finally back to Miles O'Brien. "A targeted energy beam. We're under attack."


	19. Chapter 19

They were seated around a table in one corner of the mess hall. Sisko sat at one end, Odo just a little way from the other, and positioned between them at a roughly equal distance were Major Kira and Lieutenant Commander Dax. The rounded, palm sized device they'd taken from Quark's was upright and stationary on the table in front of them.

_The device_, thought Jadzia, watching as though for signs of life. She might as well have been watching a stone. _All that time, and we haven't even thought to find this thing a name_.

But at least there was something she could tell them now.

Captain Sisko's briefing on all he'd learnt on the surface was efficient, concise, and quick to end. He drew to a close, and took equally little time to put Odo and Kira's concerns to rest. Dax remained silent throughout, not liking much at all of what she heard, but seeing no cause to interrupt. It wasn't until she heard him finish, with a part of her mind already processing all the additional questions she now had to answer, that she finally noticed the eyes of her old friend looking her way.

"If I remember correctly, there was something you wanted to tell us, old man."

"Actually--" Dax shifted, making sure that she had everybody's full attention before continuing. "Yes. While you were away on the surface, I took the liberty of gathering some further information on our mystery piece of technology."

Watching her captain - her friend, her mentor, and Curzon's one time protégé - through steady blue eyes, she braced herself for the response she knew would be coming. "Benjamin, I think I know what this might be."

"Oh?" Sisko leaned forward, fingers laced together against his chin.

"To start with, I've managed to correlate the device's signal with those anomalous readings we received from Quark's holosuite," Dax went on, but did not dwell on her initial point. This much, they already knew. "I've been considering the findings in greater detail, and the only thing I can think of to compare them to is a specific pattern of neural activity, which is found in a relative minority of humanoid species. Vulcans, Betazoids…" She glanced at Kira. "Even a small percentage of Bajorans."

"How does that help us?" asked Nerys, her dark eyes focused hard on Jadzia's face. She shook her head, still not quite comprehending. "I mean, Vulcans…?"

Dax clarified. "This is all still theoretical, you understand. But I believe this may have been intended as an amplification tool. Or possibly as a long range beacon for some kind of psychic energy."

"Psychic. You're saying…"

"Telepathy, Benjamin."

She paused, allowing a moment for her colleagues to absorb the news. But only a moment.

"My present hypothesis would be that it works in a similar fashion to our own subspace communications system. Anyone standing at a close enough proximity when it was activated would have received as clear a message, and in much the same way. Except that in this case, it appears that the receiver is channelled to focus its signal directly on the targets' central nervous systems. The bad news - as far as I can tell - is that any established link is unlikely to wear down with time or distance. I would doubt that it can be terminated by a simple push of a button. In that respect, at least, it does seem a good deal more complicated than your standard long range communication."

The captain nodded. Lifting the object for closer scrutiny, he turned it around in both dark hands. "It sounds logical enough…"

"Careful," Jadzia chided him. "With talk like that, we might just start mistaking you for a Vulcan."

A quiet snicker escaped into the air of the mess hall, but the face of her old friend quickly regained its stern composure. He set the peculiar grey disc back onto the table. "So, it looks as if our next best chance to find the doctor and the chief would have to be in tracing _this _message's original source."

Odo chose this moment to say his first words since Jadzia's lengthy explanation had begun. "Captain," he rumbled, unexpectedly enough for all the others to pay attention. "I'm afraid the only way I can see us having any luck in that regard is to locate one or both of our missing men. Governor MeiZar's may still be the only lead we have, after all."

Dax was loathe to admit it, but she could only agree.

* * *

The shuttle jolted first to port, then starboard, and finally dipped sharply - relatively speaking, Miles supposed - in a rapid-fire attempt to shake its pursuers. Miles ground his teeth, wondering helplessly if those same pursuers really _had _to be as tenacious as they were.

From the moment they recognised the initial tearing volleys, both men had dashed back into the cockpit and dropped into their seats as if they'd been propelled that way by a pair of catapults. The doctor had been first, followed immediately by O'Brien - who nearly toppled from his seat in his haste to land upon it.

Their hands raced at near inhuman speed across the controls, focus honed and close to perfectly synchronised by a flood of sudden anxiety. The lines of the sensor displays were horribly, impossibly sharp. It was of no great surprise to have finally identified their attacker. A Dominion patrol ship. Far more difficult to understand was the question of why they had so far been dealt no more than a glancing blow.

"So much for being left alone," O'Brien grumbled. His companion cast him a sidelong, slightly irate glance, but said nothing.

"_Warning_." The steady intonation of the ship's computer cut deep into the chief's final tenuous thread of tolerance. "_Shields down to twenty five percent_."

"I can see that," Miles gritted as another impact jarred along the length of his spine. He wished with every ounce of longing he could spare, that he could be in a better position to deposit a self-satisfied kick on the console in front of him. As strategy went, it had always seemed to work all right on Deep Space Nine. And even if it didn't, random violence against the surrounding machinery could be a terrific source of job satisfaction.

They made another sharp turn left - still not quick enough - which ended in yet another omnipresent metallic screech.

"_Shields at fifteen percent_."

_What is this, a countdown_?

It would happen soon enough. Their defences would be battered to nothing, the exterior surface of their one remaining refuge so badly scarred that it would no longer hold them. And once that happened, the outcome was inevitable. Just as he'd already half assumed would be their fate. Instantaneous destruction would be delayed a little; that was all.

Beside him, Julian was still fighting to maintain helm control. The skin of his face was already far too pale. But before O'Brien could comment, an alert sounded from over their heads.

"We've lost shields," exclaimed the chief.

_Finally_.

The thought surprised him, but only in passing. He clenched the muscles of his hands until they hurt. _Just make it quick_, he demanded of whatever powers controlled his destiny. Even if they failed to hear his prayer, he hoped beyond all hope that the Dominion attackers, at least, would not draw out their assault for too much longer. It was not like them to take their time.

"Chief?"

The moment passed, and Miles realised with a shock that his eyes were tightly closed. But he was even more astonished to discover that he could still open them.

It had happened again. He scarcely dared to believe it, but he forced himself to look around the interior, breathing deeply to calm his racing heart, and finally remembered to check out the face of his companion.

"Back there," he began with some difficulty. It was all he could think of to say. "You know, I didn't really mean… uh… Don't you?"

Julian nodded. "I know. I didn't either. Not really."

"Well, maybe a _little_…" Miles teased, hoping to bring the tension to a more tolerable level.

Bashir chuckled, although this subdued laugh was as anxious as the other man's feeble attempt at a smile. A slow breath escaped through his mouth as he looked around him with wide, still frightened eyes.

It was strange - too strange to be of any real comfort to O'Brien. But as far as he saw it, the moment had been met, and had passed them by with barely a nod. And the expected doom had once more failed to come.


	20. Chapter 20

The unit stood in a stiff, straight line - as tight a formation as that many bulky soldiers could manage in the constricting interior space.

First surveyed their faces. "Which of you gave the order to fire?" he demanded. In any other setting, given time for the moss to settle across their shoulders, they might readily have been mistaken for a series of large, stone-grey statues.

Third took a step from the line, still at attention, eyes directed forward as though to burn a breach in the metal exterior of the hull. "It was I."

Approaching until he stood less than a hand's breadth away, First glared proudly into his eyes. "We were given no directive to fire on unknown vessels."

"The vessel was not unknown," Third reasoned. His voice was deep and steady. "It was a Federation shuttle craft."

But First's response was as cold as the icy black void outside. "Nevertheless," he growled. "We received no order to open fire."

"I understand," said Third. "I am prepared to face whatever penalty you may choose. Obedience brings victory."

"And victory is life." First stepped back from his wayward subordinate, who waited with stoic anticipation. The expected punishment was quick to come. "As of this moment you are reduced to Fifth. Man your post."

The rest of the unit was slightly quicker to return to their assigned positions. Without a word, the new Fifth nodded once to his commander, who returned the perfunctory gesture. There was nothing more to be said about their momentary break in discipline.

* * *

_The oldest catch in history_, Dax thought as she glanced towards the constable's steady, half-formed face. _You can't have one without the other_. Still, she added the quest for a signal trace to her list of obligations.

_You never know_…

But it appeared the others had not yet finished with her. And little wonder, Dax supposed. Long distance navigation, ventures into unexplored space. Courses plotted, directions determined… These were all quite familiar to the officers around the table. But what Jadzia had told them, although not entirely beyond comprehension, was far more within her own realm of expertise than it ever had been theirs.

_Which is the whole point of having a Science Officer in the first place_. It felt strangely uplifting to remind herself, even though she hardly needed the reminder.

"So, what _would_ you suggest is going on?" It was Benjamin who had asked. "Mind control?"

"Not exactly." Dax paused to allow herself a single inward breath. Deep and steadying - at least it seemed to aid her focus. She might have been more at ease than anyone else around the table, but she was not at all accustomed to being this unsure of what to say.

For a second or two, she sat in silence, letting her thoughts settle into a more easily definable form - something she could better translate into words. Finally, she returned to her audience. It took a barely perceptible hesitation before she felt ready enough to continue.

"Understand this _is_ still theoretical, Benjamin." Of course she was repeating herself, but it was far from a true scientist's nature not to admit when a hypothesis was untested. At a nod from the captain, she was glad to see that he at least understood. "Right now, judging from the behaviour we've seen, I would guess that it must have resulted from an… _augmentation _of those inborn tendencies which are observable in every species in the galaxy. And not just humanoids, either."

"Instinct?" said Sisko.

Jadzia echoed his shallow frown. "Not quite…"

"Wait a minute." Kira leaned back as though recoiling from their exchange. Both her hands were raised, palms forward - and she shook her head with the same confusion that had turned her expression to a bright eyed glare. "What does _instinct _have to do with stealing shuttles?"

"I never said anything about instinct," Jadzia took great pains to clarify. "This has far more to do with chemical rewards, supplied internally by the autonomic nervous system of every living humanoid. As I explained earlier, the impetus to seek these rewards is as natural as our search for food or air. In alternative circumstances it might cause an individual to develop an addiction to gambling, or holosuite arcades, or even to certain synthetic substances…"

"…Or possibly the impulse to step with a certain precision over cracks in the floor?" supplied Odo. He faced the others directly, and gave no outward sign that he was the least bit troubled by Major Kira's unsubtle stare.

The muscles around Jadzia's lips began to twitch into the faintest suggestion of an involuntary smile.

_Behave yourself! This is serious_.

Coughing a little under her breath, she lowered her head and tensed her jaw until it ached. She remained as she was for a moment longer, although rather poorly hidden, and swallowed back a barely resistible temptation to submit another comment of her own.

_Or having to keep the furniture in your office that little bit more perfectly arranged_, she thought wryly, turning yet another chuckle to a soft, throaty cough. _Accurate to the degree of a hair. Just while we're on the subject of obsessive quirks_…

With a sideways glance, Dax noted that Benjamin was frowning her way. The look he passed to her was enough to put an end to even Jadzia's near-subliminal flash of amusement. Working quickly, she gathered her wits and looked towards him.

"So. An addiction?" The captain's voice was deep and thoughtful.

"Not… _exactly_," responded Dax. "But you're not entirely incorrect either."

The previous struggle with her own mood now no more than a fading memory, she glanced around at all three faces. "I don't think I need to tell anyone here what a powerful motivating force the brain can be, even without the influence of additional outside stimuli. Those rewards and punishments it provides us with all on its own are certainly nothing to be scoffed at."

"_Bridge to Captain Sisko_."

Sisko started a little at the interruption, but didn't hesitate to respond to the nervous young ensign.

"Sisko here."

"_Captain_." The woman's voice was taut, but controlled. "_You'd better get up here_."


	21. Chapter 21

In other, more comprehensible circumstances, Julian Bashir didn't usually have such difficulty keeping track of time. It was not something he generally liked to advertise - and had discovered long ago that open boasts about his past achievements was a remarkably effective way to keep from having to respond to any awkward questions.

But just occasionally, through the slow, monotonous passage of so many minutes - each one barely different from those that had come before - there were moments when even he would lose his hold. And this, he supposed, was one of those occasions. He held back a sigh, but was far from successful at preventing himself from scratching nervously at one side of his head.

The engines had taken longer than expected to fail, limping forward until the moment when they had taken a final, lurching gasp - and died. The Jem'Hadar's attack had drained their shields to nothing. Warp and impulse engines were worse than useless, and even the ship's internal diagnostics had gone offline to make room for more vital systems. Not that it was likely to make a lot of difference in the end.

At least they still had gravity, and some level of basic life support. That was something - for the moment, anyway. But the only way Bashir could tell for sure was that most loose items remained where they had always been, and that he and Miles still appeared to be taking in air.

Julian's gaze was drawn to a wall at his left, where a nearby light was sputtering deep beneath the fractured surface. Even this grew steadily dimmer with every flicker. It was taunting, fading. Dying, as surely as the engines had died just minutes earlier.

As he stared at the failing ice-blue glow, he imagined that he could even hear the hull plates shift and creak. Almost like the timber of an ancient sailing ship. But then he shook his head at the absurdity of the notion. Nothing. There was nothing left for either of them to hear. He was no longer even certain that the replicators were producing atmosphere for them both to breathe.

He could not help but wonder if it was more than his imagination making the air seem that much thinner than it ought to be. Quietly, attempting discretion, he forced a series of rapid, sucking breaths. But his effort to test the quality of the ventilation did not escape the notice of his friend.

"However long we've got--" Miles O'Brien turned to face him, scowling slightly. "I don't want to know."

_Fair enough_, thought Julian. He could certainly understand the chief's reluctance to be told. A large part of him was just as unwilling, but there was no way he could stop the same calculations from playing and replaying like a persistent song across his thoughts.

_Two hours. Possibly another half, if we're lucky. But not too much further beyond that_. Not unless they could find somewhere to stop for more repairs. And Julian was doubtful that they could ever be that lucky twice.

And worse still, he noticed with an unseen shudder. He was fast beginning to feel the cold.

* * *

"That's it, then." Chief O'Brien's wary gaze wandered in no particular direction as the last remaining light finally trailed away to nothing. "We're dead in space."

There. He'd said it.

The echo of his words faded to the back of his memory, although a little too slowly for Miles' liking. Of course, he reminded himself, shuddering against the encroaching chill. A _sensible _man would take the first opportunity he could find, and attempt to launch an emergency subspace beacon, or crouch inside the nearest escape pod, eject it into the lightless void, and pray. Hope that whatever deity was out there would allow them to be rescued before their oxygen supply ran out, or the boredom of close confinement should drive them even further to distraction.

It did not take a lot of thought for Miles to see. There were at least two problems with the choices of a sensible man. The first of these was that distress beacons and escape pods were both among those items he had so far not managed to locate. He was certain - with not even a flicker of doubt - that Federation safety standards would have something to say about this particular oversight. But the second of these problems was that neither he nor his travelling companion was feeling especially sensible at that time.

"Dead in space," he repeated softly. His words hung in the air like the weight of a fog on a windless night. "All adrift and nowhere to go."

"Not for long." Julian's body was far more slender than the chief's. He was already shivering, hunched over as though in the beginnings of a tight, protective crouch. Even then, he forced himself upright on unsteady legs, and stared directly ahead with an expression of cold horror set like plaster across his face. The struggling light was hardly an obstacle to Miles' now too clear view of his companion. And Bashir's face was as drained of colour as Miles imagined his own to be.

"What do you mean?" he hardly dared to ask. "Where would we go, without even working thrusters? _How _would we…?"

"Gravity." Julian pointed to the viewscreen, where darkness outside now showed the rapidly advancing bulk of a solitary planet. O'Brien saw that the doctor was no longer shivering. "Looks like we've found the Whirlpool."

* * *

Sisko was quick to lead the rest of his available senior officers to the bridge. "Report," he barked as soon as the door slid open to allow him inside.

The ensign nodded at an active display screen. "Company," was all she said.

Sisko dropped just as quickly into the centre chair and gazed at the underside of a large bulbous vessel, where it was streaked with lines of neon violet. _One ship. If it comes down to it, we _can _take on one ship. But they won't make it easy_.

His stomach sank. He looked to the other side of the screen, at a second identical vessel now drifting into view.

"All stop." As he so often did, he found himself wondering where this low, hushed whisper had come from. It wasn't as if the Jem'Hadar could hear him. Could they? "Go to red alert."

…And if there really _had _been a need for silence on the bridge, that shrill, repetitive alarm would have put a stop to it in an instant. Why did Starfleet never consider the sanity of its officers when designing those alert protocols, he asked himself, especially at a time when the situation was already this tense?

"And now we wait." But he'd pitched his voice low, to creep like a serpent beneath the surrounding cacophony. This was instinct - the silent, watchful dance of predators. Every twitch could be a prelude to a strike. Gazing intently at the forward-view display, Sisko was glad that at least his ship was hidden.

"Sir. We're being hailed."

"What?"

He hadn't imagined that it could ever be possible, but the young ensign's voice carried an even heftier share of disbelief than his own had done. "They're… They're _hailing _us, Captain."

Her words were followed by a heavy pause. Sisko felt the deck plates shift beneath him, as abruptly as the sudden shift in his views on reality. A large part of him could almost believe that the floor really _had _turned to the consistency of warm jelly, far more readily than he could believe that what he saw was really happening. But he hesitated. If only he could bring his own thoughts into line…

"Can't somebody turn that _damn _siren off?" he came close to bellowing, and the noise obligingly ceased.

"_U.S.S. Defiant_." As if on cue, a voice reached them over the comm. It was clear, disembodied, deceptively smooth. "_I am the Vorta Eiyon. If you drop your cloak and allow me to beam aboard your vessel, I have a proposal to make to you_."

"What do we do?" asked Kira, frowning. Sisko noticed that she had also dropped her voice to a whisper.

He thought quickly. "Nothing yet," he decided. "Not until we can be certain as to why they're here, and what they really want."

Kira gasped with barely contained incredulity. "Captain. I think it's pretty _obvious _what they want from us. Both those ships are full of Jem'Hadar. What do Jem'Hadar ever want?"

_But there's still their Vorta_. So far, Starfleet had very little experience with these pale, sapphire-eyed strangers. But they knew enough to be sure of one thing. Encounters with the Dominion were always more complicated when a Vorta was involved. The captain did not respond to his first officer's latest outburst, but he continued to stare darkly at the viewscreen, like a cat watching a snake.

"If they had intended to fire on us," Odo asserted, standing rigidly just half a step behind Nerys' right shoulder. "Why have they not already done so? Why hail us instead?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Kira snapped, spinning around to face him and gesticulating so wildly that she very nearly slapped the constable across his chest. "They want us to lower our defences, and give _them _the first shot. It's a trick!"

"Possible…" conceded Sisko, fingertips stroking the line of his thin, dark beard. "Although…"

But before he could complete this sentiment, the captain found himself interrupted. "_U.S.S. Defiant_." The same persistent voice cut through all their thoughts. "_We have already discovered that you are less than one hundred kilometres from our present position_. _I feel obligated to inform you that your disguise is not as perfect as you currently assume it to be. _

"_And now, I see two possible courses open to you, of which I have no doubt you are already aware. Either you can remain in hiding while we run our anti-proton scans - and pinpoint your location in under half an hour. Or you can decloak, and consider giving us an answer to our hails. My personal opinion is that our information would be of far greater use to you with your vessel still intact. Which brings me to the better of your options. I suggest that you accept our offer, and allow us to meet under a banner of truce_."


	22. Chapter 22

There was something very peculiar about the system they were coming to - something which, by rights, should not have even been possible. Sudden flares of energy combined with seemingly random, treacherous gravitational eddies, stretching upwards from every one of the nearby planets and lending them a far greater pull than anything of their size and mass had any right to.

It was as if a giant hand was reaching from the space above the closest planet's surface, extending towards the tiny lone shuttle to squeeze and wrench and pluck it from the sky.

The end result of this oddly augmented pull was that a cluster of planets was drawn towards each other as though in a delicately balanced waltz. And anything as small and fragile as a ship caught in this hyper-extended web of turbulence would be sucked right in. Like… Like…

_Well_, thought Julian, through the chill already clenched around his brain. Even his breath trembled. _Like a boat caught in a whirlpool_.

"The jaws of Charybdis…" he whispered, quietly ominous.

Miles stared. "What?"

"Oh." With some effort, Julian blinked himself free of his trance, and shook his head. He continued, although his voice was still a little hoarse. "Nothing special. Just something I read in…"

The shuttle screamed, rocked by yet another convulsive shudder, and Bashir jerked his head upwards with a startled gasp.

It was one of the tales of ancient mariners - themselves adventurers into unknown lands. Two monsters, both lying in wait for passing vessels. Both constantly poised and set for ambush. The first would mount a direct attack, snapping jaws launching from the darkness to pluck sailors from the deck of their ship with as little discrimination as a small child plucking buttercups.

And even those who survived the first, Bashir recalled, might not have been half as fortunate as they supposed themselves to be. Their fates were still in the hands of chance, as a large number of them were sucked down into the belly of the second waiting monstrosity. Charybdis.

Shivering violently, hands spread wide across his shoulders, he could not hold back the notion that they had encountered Scylla's equal already. Even if the Jem'Hadar had failed to finish what they started, the shuttle was damaged beyond his control - heavy and frozen with the constant, heaving storm of the Whirlpool. Miles was right. They were dead in space.

_Unless_… Julian flexed his aching fingers, leaning forward intently and watching the screen. "What are you doing?" grumbled Miles, caution aroused by the change in the face of his friend. But before Julian could answer, the whole ship lurched again.

"That's it." Teeth still chattering, O'Brien staggered a little as he started towards the rear compartment. "We have to get out of here."

"No," said Julian. He could barely feel the surface of the console, bloodless hands struggling to locate each correct position. But he focused hard on the dance of his fingers across the controls. Urgency and excitement pushed his voice forward. "Wait, Miles. Not just yet."

The chief turned back, frowning over his shoulder. One hand rested against the dividing panel, while the other was clenched into an anxious fist. "What?"

Bashir's smile opened to a wicked grin. "I have an idea."

* * *

Odo had always suspected that he would one day have to make contact with the Dominion once again. He'd never felt particularly easy in their presence, from the very first moment when he and Kira had discovered the Founders' previous homeworld. Even now, as he waited by the transporters, knowledge of what was still to come sent waves of anxiety pulsing through his body. He folded both arms across his chest, shaping his face into its usual hardened stare.

The captain had decided - insisted, even - that it would be a good idea for Odo to be present when their visitor beamed aboard. And if that was really what Sisko believed, then the constable supposed it was reason enough to follow his captain to the transporter bay. He had to confess, after all - however reluctantly - that he understood the logic.

Eiyon's shape was steadily gaining corporeal form, molecules congealing behind a luminous stream of shimmering blue-white energy. "Before you say anything," Odo rasped, anticipating the beginnings of a low, submissive bow. "I am not a Founder and do not appreciate being treated as one."

"As you say." The Vorta's ingratiating, almost sycophantic reply was every bit as irritating as if no-one had interrupted his attempt at unwarranted flattery.

He turned his staring blue eyes to Odo's companion. "Captain Sisko," he gushed. "I am happy to see that reports of your unparalleled good sense have not been exaggerated. Let me assure you that you made the correct decision, and now that I am here, I have a matter of some great import to discuss with you."

"Which is what?" Sisko demanded of him. Odo could feel the rumble of impatience coming through the man's deep voice.

"The Whirlpool, Captain," Eiyon replied as though explaining a concept as obvious as the sum of two and two. "That _is _where you are going, is it not?"

* * *

"Right, then," said Captain Benjamin Sisko, casting his most steady, dark glare at the Vorta in front of him. He and Odo had ushered their visitor into the relative privacy of an empty mess hall - the same place where he and Ornithar had carried out their exchange only hours earlier. "Two things are going to happen before we move on to anything else. First, you will explain to me _exactly _why you know our destination. And then you will tell me what bearing this has on your presence here."

Odo stood in one corner, where he watched in stone-faced silence, carefully dissecting every movement behind every word of their guest's reply.

Eiyon stepped deliberately forward, with none of the regular up-and-down motion that usually accompanied a humanoid gait. "Frankly, Captain, I doubt that you are in any position to be making demands," he began. His voice was as smooth as the liquid surface on a cup of poison. He turned away, just slightly - and continued.

"But… in the interest of good relations… What we know and do not know in this case is scarcely relevant, any more than is the means by which we obtained this information. What ought to concern you for the moment at least is the assistance we can provide."

"Which brings me to my next question." Standing at his full height, Sisko was tall enough that their pale-faced visitor barely came up to the top of his chest. But that did nothing to negate the hint of something dangerous in Eiyon's stance, which had no need for significant height.

Sisko, however, did not appear at all threatened by this cool display. "Why would _you _be wanting to help _us_?" he asked.

Eiyon's answering smile was far too smooth. "Does that _really _matter, Captain?"

"It does if you want me to believe a word of what you say."

The Vorta heaved a dramatic sigh. But Odo was as certain as he'd ever been that even this elaborate display revealed nothing of his true emotion. He doubted that any of Eiyon's responses had been entirely real.

"I promise I have no intention to lead you astray." Glancing to one side, Eiyon directed his answer far more at the constable than at his human captain. But this did not stop Ben Sisko from listening nearby. "Our present actions are motivated by a twofold cause. Firstly, ensuring the Defiant's safety would - I assume - also be necessary to ensure Odo's safety through the course of your current mission. Am I correct?"

"You are," Odo responded before Sisko had a chance.

"And while the Founders cannot agree with many of the choices you have made, they are most anxious that you should not come to harm."

A loud grunt from Odo was more than enough to indicate exactly what he thought of the other changelings, their plans, and their concern. "And your other reason?" he interrupted.

Eiyon nodded as though to indicate understanding, which further heightened the constable's sense of irritability. "There is an alliance - between the Dominion and a species with which I have little personal familiarity. And owing to this, the Founders left strict instructions that we were to allow your friends safe passage through the Gamma Quadrant."

Something else passed briefly across his face, something much darker and subtler than his usual countenance. Almost like… Odo shifted a fraction closer, hoping for a better view of the Vorta's plaster-white visage.

…_Uncertainty_?

But just as quickly, it was gone. "Unfortunately," Eiyon went on. "There was an… imperfection in our lines of communication. Which I assure you _has _been satisfactorily rectified. As a result, your Federation vessel may have been mistaken - albeit briefly - for an enemy craft, and it may have suffered some damage in the process."

"How badly was it damaged?" demanded Sisko.

"Badly enough," Eiyon snapped, having to turn his head momentarily towards the captain. Again, he returned the greater part of his attention back to the watching constable. His façade of cordiality was back in its place, but not before Sisko and Odo both caught a flash of the near serpentine threat behind it.

_We're not friends_. Odo scarcely needed to be reminded, but he made no effort to keep the thought away.

Eiyon continued to speak, now as meticulously polite as if this break in his performance had never revealed itself at all. "Naturally, our ally has indicated that it would be less than prudent for us to interfere directly with the shuttle's progress. But of course there _are _other ways to minimise the impact of our troops' more misguided actions. Which is why I come to you instead. You are about to enter into dangerous territory, after all."

Odo snorted. "If that's all you came here to tell us," he growled. "You may as well not have bothered. We already know."

"F-" Eiyon caught the word in his throat as a fearsome glare radiated outwards from behind the constable's level blue eyes. "_Odo_. I did not come all this way to offer you information that you have received already. But if you wish it, I do have the knowledge that may get you safely through."


	23. Chapter 23

The ship lurched and rocked again, throwing Miles roughly against the nearest wall.

"Bloody Hell," he swore.

Worse, the conflicting forces of the Whirlpool had wrenched their ship's hull so badly that it had opened up power compartments he'd never known they still possessed. Sparks rained down from the upper walls, where tubes and wiring dangled like the tentacles on a jellyfish - and Miles had no doubt that their sting was just as potent. Most of the flashing lights on board, he was certain were not meant to be flashing.

"Right then," he sputtered, words tumbling out far more rapidly than he'd intended - which was probably just as well. "Computer, stand by for emergency transport."

He righted himself just in time to find the doctor still at the pilot's console, and shouted loudly enough to tear at his throat. "Julian! Get over here!"

Julian's eyes bore a manic gleam. "Not long now," he was saying. "Let me get a little closer to that planet… We can boost the forward shields and use its atmosphere for added momentum. Just like skimming a stone."

"What?" screamed Miles. "What shields? Are you completely insane? We _don't have shields_!"

His voice barely carried. And even if it had, Bashir wasn't listening as he dodged away from yet another random energy flare, but didn't even look around.

"Come on, Miles. Help me out here."

"Julian - you're being an idiot."

Still cursing and growling, Miles O'Brien staggered towards the back of the craft. Perhaps he could prep the transporters to spirit them away from their current position, and with luck he would not have to wrestle the doctor from his chair. But without functioning internal diagnostics, he could not tell how long they had. And he knew from experience that - in spite of his smaller build - his friend was remarkably stubborn, certainly able to call on hidden reserves of tenacity from goodness only knew where…

O'Brien felt the next impact jar against him, powerful enough to pummel the nerves along his back and shoulders. For a moment, all he could do was crouch where he was, coughing fiercely and barely able to take a proper breath. Gritting his teeth, he shifted precariously until he was balancing somewhat upright on the deck.

His ears still ached from the scream of hull plates, but he did not seem to have broken any bones. Even so, there'd definitely been a sharp, horribly organic sound of something cracking.

Miles waited for his own initial wave of shock and pain to subside, and staggered forward in an unsteady, zig-zag line. Smoke and sparks of chill blue already blocked his view of the narrow cockpit, and he flinched away from the shower of energy that spurted from the corner of the nearest control panel.

_If we don't get outta here_… The thought alone lent speed to his limbs. _We won't have a chance_. He peered through the smoke, desperate to catch a glimpse of his barely visible friend. And then he swore again.

The doctor was awkwardly positioned in the space between the console and a lower bulkhead, although how he'd managed to fall into such a narrow gap, Miles couldn't possibly tell. Bashir's lips curled into a tight grimace, the shade of a dark bruise already beginning to form upon his left hand temple. He was leaning back, eyes closed, and with one arm twisted into an uncomfortable angle across his ribs.

So now O'Brien knew what that whiplike crack had been. _Great_.

"Told you so, didn't I?" he hissed through clenched teeth, stumbling forward the last few steps. "You're an idiot, Julian."

A pop, and a _snap_, directly behind him - and another shower of neon-blue sparks tumbled onto the deck. For a brief, agonising moment, Miles O'Brien wondered if it wouldn't be easier to escape the crippled vessel on his own. Muscles so tense that the pain of it ran along his neck and shoulders, he started to turn away.

_Blind_… The urge to move forward was so overwhelming, he was blind to everything around him. The smoke, darkness, flashing lights… The cold. Even Julian.

_Julian_!

"No." Chief O'Brien was a Starfleet officer. Starfleet officers didn't abandon their friends - not if there was any choice. Breathing deeply, forcefully, he bowed his head, and fought to push all previous unwelcome thoughts aside.

In one eternal instant, the floor lurched yet again. O'Brien winced, stumbled almost to his knees, and realised that his eyes were closed tightly enough to cause him to tremble.

There was no time left for him to worry about what further damage might result from his actions. With a stream of words he prayed his daughter would never have a chance to learn, he wrapped his arms around the doctor's chest, locking his hands together and lifting his friend from the surrounding debris.

Bashir let out a soft grunt of protest - although whether from the pain or from the indignity of being so unceremoniously hauled across the floor was impossible to say for certain.

"Yeah - tell me about it," Miles grumbled as he struggled to drag his semi-conscious friend towards the transporter pad. Sparks continued to flare and die around him, and he came too close to choking in the thin, stinking air.

_Best chance we have, I suppose_. The chief coughed, chest aching. _Just hope there's something or other for us to breathe down there_.

He set his jaw until he felt the pain of his muscles clenching. _Only one way to find out_…

"Energise!" he gasped, and his voice barely surfaced above the surrounding din.

* * *

From the safety that comes with distance, the watcher gazed upon the scene. It paid close attention to a progression of events as steady and unstoppable as the turning of the stars. The approaching vessel was barely a speck on the visual plane, but it was clear enough to discern every detail, every tremor along the surface of its hull.

The spacecraft shuddered again, fragments of metal breaking off like dust on a still day - until after one final dying lurch, it rocked and twisted, and finally burst apart in a rapidly extending, soundless ball of flame. Debris stretched outward in every direction. And the watcher bore witness to every moment in the life of those fiery tendrils of light.

_Again_? It demanded of the black-faced void. But the vista of stars and even the planet below did not offer any answers. If there were any to be had, then those who knew were keeping their silence. Perhaps it was foolish to have been so hopeful. Even its previous subjects had come so much further. They, at least, had been within sight of their ultimate goal.

Sharply, angrily, the watcher cursed these inadequate beings, who would lead themselves into such dramatic failure. It cursed the shortcomings of its allies. _Former _allies, it corrected itself. They certainly weren't worth retaining any longer.

But more than at any other being in the entire expanse of the galaxy, the watcher directed its remaining curses most definitively at itself. And one clear certainty rose from the jumble of thoughts. This constant series of failures could not be allowed to continue. Even now, even after so many attempts, how could there still be so little suggestion that anything had improved? Such effort, such careful planning, so much forethought - always wasted.

Judged strictly by the distance covered, this last stage had not even been a forward step. And the watcher found yet again that it could not stop itself from asking. _Why_? The question fell like a drumbeat, tolling in the darkness and reverberating far too long at the very centre of the watcher's consciousness. _Failure_, said the imagined drum. _Again_.

There _was _an easier option, perhaps. Simply to accept the course of the universe, return to the beginning, and patiently to keep on trying. But no - not this time. Acceptance was impossible. Unthinkable. And yet, its view of the alien ship was far too clear, every detail far too pronounced to allow for any other interpretation. Next time, it would have to strengthen its call, choose better alliances, and cease allowing for time to waste in pointless stops along the way.

As surely as each laser-thin streamer trailed inexorably into the blackness, the watcher sensed the death of every one of its own hopes. It did not take long for all those hopes to feel as dry as the crust on an empty lake bed. All that remained for the watcher to find were stolen expectations - soon to fade like used-up illusions and bring it once more close to despair.

Close.

Something else came from the darkness to grab the watcher's attention, the shimmer of energy so slight against the void that it was almost undetectable. Hope crept again into view. The watcher shivered, indulging for no more than a moment in a brief and shapeless dance of joy.

_They're coming_.


	24. Chapter 24

"I assume you know already about this system's extended gravity field?"

Their visitor regarded each face with the same disconcerting stare as he did every other, challenging - possibly even mocking - the Defiant's crew. It was difficult to be entirely certain what answer he was hoping for, or even if he would be particularly satisfied with either.

"We had some idea…" confirmed Dax.

Eiyon smiled, apparently pleased.

_Apparently_. Could any of them have prevented the thought from entering their minds? One thing was certain. Their captain had not.

"Good." The Vorta's finger traced a jagged diagonal path from the top left corner of the screen, all the way to the one directly opposite.

"I suggest you take the following course through," he told the gathered officers. It was already marked in yellow against the black of the display. "Not risk free, of course, but it is the safest that exists."

"How do you know this?" Odo asked, leaning back slightly with both arms folded across the darker beige of his Security uniform.

Eiyon turned towards him. "The Dominion has been aware of this region for many, _many _centuries. It was once an ideal military base, long ago. But we have since transferred to better locations, several within a ten light year radius of the original. Needless to say, we certainly have experience enough to have ascertained the best way in and out."

_And how many Jem'Hadar did you sacrifice to gain that "experience"_? Sisko wondered, hostility bordering on contempt. But the advice had been given simply enough - without any hint of deception apart from the whisper of his own overactive instincts.

Sisko narrowed his eyes just slightly, studying the Vorta's recommended course. It would be a snug fit for a ship the size of the Defiant, with barely any margin for error. But it was in no way unmanageable, _if_ they were careful. But he could not help but ask himself how much of his study was motivated by anything more than a desire to focus on something other than Eiyon's still-staring blue eyes.

And that same Vorta had not yet finished, it seemed. "Another thing, Captain," he was saying. "If you wish to make it through the Whirlpool, you will have to do so without your shields."

The larger man shook his head, working hard not to leap from his chair and shout his disbelief to all around him. "Not an option," he insisted, and especially noted the change on Jadzia's face. She knew as well as anyone that the calm in her old friend's voice had been a little _too _controlled. "I'm not sending the Defiant through that much turbulence without some pretty strong defences, at the very least."

"Captain Sisko." Hard, unyielding determination had found its way into Eiyon's response. "If you want to survive even the initial descent into the Whirlpool's gravity field - and I doubt I need to mention, there is still the climb back out - you will need to cast off the luxury of 'pretty strong defences'. Your ship needs to be as narrow and streamlined as you can possibly make it. Because if it is not, these same anomalies will tear through your shields in no time at all. And afterwards they will make a start on your outer hull. Trust me."

_Trust_. Ben Sisko jerked slightly backwards as though to escape the very unreality of the scene. He blinked - once; twice - struggling to conceal a frown.

Trust a Vorta? This journey was proving to be even more surreal than he'd expected. He could hardly imagine a time when two coinciding words had fitted more poorly together.

"I want an alternative," the captain snapped. "I refuse to believe that our only choice is either to attempt an unprotected descent or be torn apart like wet paper."

"It _might _be possible-" Dax started to suggest. "With a few small adjustments, to change the overall shape of our shields. We could make it so that they sit much closer to the Defiant's surface."

She paused, finally looking up. But her expression remained somewhat dubious. "It's far from ideal, Benjamin, and the gap would have to be no more than a centimetre or two. But it could provide us with the streamlining we need."

"Are you sure of that?" Kira asked.

Jadzia sighed, almost too quietly to be noticed. "Well, we'd be far less vulnerable this way than if we went ahead with no shields at all."

Suddenly aware of a barely perceived ache behind his brows - which had been there all along, he noted without surprise - Captain Sisko returned his attention to Eiyon.

"It would certainly be interesting if you could make it work," the pale-faced Vorta conceded. "After all, your main problem will be how to get past this outer sphere. Once you clear _that_, your task ought to be relatively easy."

And now, he allowed himself a long, deep sigh of his own. "However," he added. "I would be less than forthcoming if I did not confess to a healthy share of doubt."

* * *

The final approach of the Defiant had been a little too slow, covering the last few thousand kilometres at nothing above a sluggish half impulse. But Kira supposed their lack of speed was probably not without intent. It was slower than she would have chosen to go herself, but even she could see that it was an effective way to ensure the maximum possible accuracy. And accuracy _was _what mattered. Wasn't it?

The admission was a grudging one. But there were far more pressing concerns now forcing their way into her thoughts.

"Sensors are detecting a debris field." Words struggled through a clenching pain in her throat, every part of her attention focused on the display before her. And she longed to be able to reach forward and brush away the scattered, illuminated symbols, just as she might a layer of dust upon the screen. Brush every one of them out of existence…

But her barely level voice continued to report the details of what her monitor showed her. She heard it reach her own ears, sensed that it was somehow connected to the shape of her mouth, but never quite managed to feel that the words were entirely her own.

"It's orbiting the planet at an average altitude of fifty three point five kilometres," Major Kira intoned. "Judging from the dispersal pattern, it looks like it's been there for quite some time."

The skin of her face was all at once suddenly hot and numb. She could sense the pulse throbbing uncomfortably beneath it, with an anxious tingle running directly behind her lips. She swivelled around in one determined motion, which was more than enough to demand the attention of her startled colleagues, and noted that every face was staring, open mouthed, no doubt wondering how long it would take for her to remember to breathe. Nerys was no more certain of the answer than her friends appeared to be.

Feeling dizzy, she directed her dark eyes straight towards the captain. From his look of horrified anticipation, she guessed that her own expression was no less sickened. Her skin - although naturally pale even in the hottest sun - must have already come close to paper white.

"Captain," she gasped. "It's them."


	25. Chapter 25

The cave lacked the usual limestone tendrils that draped from the ceilings of its darker, more familiar counterparts back on Earth. From his first glance, Miles could see that it was markedly dissimilar from those he usually enjoyed clambering around during stolen moments away from Deep Space Nine.

The walls were cracked on every surface, and somewhat corrugated - a reminder of some immense, rock-shattering trauma from eons past. But the intervening years had healed the stone, leaving only long, twisted scars, reforming it with fine, dusky sediments that had gathered to solidify within its wounds. Deposits of something very much like ochre created semi-horizontal ribbons along its surface and mingled in places with a second dark mineral, a colour somewhere part way between jade and granite.

It snaked in thin reefs across the cavern, curving as the rocks curved. And the rusty overtone of these blended hues was dry and chalky, peppered at uneven intervals with random patches of iron grey. As they brushed against it, O'Brien's fingertips came away stained desert red.

"What's that for?" asked Julian as the pile of driftwood tumbled from his companion's arms, landing with a noisy clatter on the ground mere inches from their feet.

"Fire," O'Brien responded. "Still don't know how cold this place'll get come nightfall."

He could not locate any living plants within his sight, but guessed from the abundance of sedimentary rock that their chosen location had seen its share of floods. So, the wood must have been pushed into the cavern entrance during one of this area's wetter seasons. Since then it had gathered against the walls and dried to grey, transforming it into the perfect tinder. Whether these same dead, twisted branches could sustain a lasting blaze was up to powers well beyond the control of either man.

"And food," added Miles, dumping a couple of ration packs onto the cavern floor. There was a reverberating slap as they landed almost simultaneously, and he was glad that he'd already slung a bag of supplies over one shoulder before the shuttle's consoles had started to explode.

Julian Bashir glanced down at the gleaming silver packs, and wrinkled his nose.

"Oh, I forgot." Shamefully, perhaps, Miles rather enjoyed his friend's display of quiet disgust. "You don't _like _field rations, do you?"

Julian cast him a darkly sarcastic glare. But Miles allowed it to pass him by as he also sat down to eat.

Clasping his rations in one hand, the doctor tore it open with his teeth and pressed its contents upward until enough had shown itself for him to pull it into his mouth. Munching thoughtfully, he gazed around him. "You realise we're stuck in here?"

"Aren't _we _the eternal optimist?" O'Brien retorted, hunting around his supplies for some halfway decent fire starters. "Look - stop worrying. We can't have been led all this way for no reason. Can we?"

He paused, allowing the words to hang in the air, and setting aside a cold shudder that ran along his spine. He could not say why he was so certain, but he knew - just as surely as he knew how to walk, and talk, and tap his fingers in time to some favourite sentimental tune. They had to be going in the right direction. But this cave was just a stepping stone - a halfway point to some far more important conclusion.

And they _would _reach it, Miles told himself with tight-jawed determination. Their urge to continue was far too ingrained. Much too deeply set into their blood for the pair of them not to keep on moving forward.

Bashir finished his own meagre supper, and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily as though still in some pain. He'd seemed quite surprised at first to find a rudimentary splint already fastened around his arm, tied in place with fabric from the sleeves of the chief's own undershirt. "What?" O'Brien remembered grumbling. "You reckon you doctors are the only ones in the galaxy who know anything about… _anything_?"

Basic first aid, he'd discovered in his earlier years, was not unlike the finer points of improvised engineering - too often a matter of learn or die. And now, both men were silent as the smouldering fire came steadily to life. Miles was pleased with the way it burned, and secretly also a little proud. But none of this did anything to answer his broader concern. Julian was right. For the moment at least, they _were _marooned, and still had to work out a way to get themselves back on course.

He elected to say nothing of the drifting blue lights that had rippled smoothly along the stone at the very edge of his visual field. And neither did he mention that oddly uneasy sensation creeping along his back as he'd searched along some of the cave's more deserted passages. The discomfiting tingle of hair standing on end, of knowing - without knowing how he knew - that some barely seen thing was looking his way.

O'Brien shivered involuntarily as he waited for the fire to warm him. Whatever else, he thought to himself, this night was going to be a long one.

* * *

"Listen to me, Captain," said Eiyon, never allowing his gaze to falter. "Your friends _are _alive."

The Human captain turned on him with a dangerous, cold-white gleam in his eye. "How can you know that?"

"Have you forgotten?" responded the cool faced Vorta. "Our ally knows the entire course of events in the instant they unfold. If your officers were dead, then the Founders would have received word of their demise. We would know."

Sisko frowned, as though looking for a reason to disbelieve his words. But he still appeared to be torn by possibilities. Eiyon watched, for once unable to understand the other man's reaction. From what he'd learnt of the Human species, they were supposed to be only too willing to leap towards the most desirable conclusions.

"So what you're saying--" It was the slender Bajoran who snatched his attention away. "Is that you still think we should go down there?"

Eiyon responded with a smooth nod.

Already he was on hostile ground. A ship full of alien outsiders, and with himself feeling like a limb that had been cast away from the nourishing presence of its tree. But he had his orders, and wherever Dominion interests required him to be, he would. But still…

At the Bajoran woman's side, there was _Odo_. The very name was notorious. The god who had abandoned Paradise; the Founder who persisted in denying even his own divinity. The very same one who had been willing to slaughter a member of his own race rather than to permit the deaths of these lesser beings.

With every thought, Eiyon discovered that his gall was rising. He had no personal desire to be among them, but his wishes were every bit as irrelevant as theirs. They always had been. What truly set him apart - what made him better than almost anybody else aboard this Federation ship - was that he was the only one who appeared to know it.

"All this deliberation is wasting time," he told them, injecting a subtle measure of insistence into his words. "If you truly wish to find your friends, you will not find them up here."

Their captain released a long and heavy sigh. "Continue scanning for life signs," he commanded, and turned to the tall, white-faced woman with broad, speckled bands of colour extending down either side of her head. "Have you finished the shield modifications yet?"

The Trill paused for barely a moment. "Nearly, Benjamin."

"How long?"

"Ten minutes?" she guessed.

"Make it five," Sisko told her. "_That's _your priority. We need to be as ready for this as we can possibly be."

"Aye, Sir."

A feeling of satisfaction crept all the way over Eiyon's small body. He did not allow the change to show upon his face. But if the others on board had been able to look into his mind, they would easily have seen that - for the moment at least - his smile was genuine.

* * *

Four minutes later, Jadzia Dax was once more crouched by the glow of an open console, with Kira watching unhappily at her side. Probably feeling just a little useless, Jadzia supposed. But with the turn her own mood had taken, at least she was momentarily glad for the company. _Don't worry, Major. Your time will come. I only hope that some part of what I do here can make a bit of difference_.

She had not expressed every one of her inner doubts, not even to the captain. But she felt as certain as she could have been about anything that Benjamin had made the only possible decision. They were not to go in until they and the Defiant were properly prepared.

"The trouble is--" Dax had told him, careful to be as far as possible from the ears of their Dominion guest before she spoke. "I can reconfigure the shields for our descent, but I cannot possibly vouch for their strength once I do. We may still end up a little compromised."

And it would have to be no more than a temporary measure, which would be difficult to reverse even once they finally got back to the station.

"There'll be a lot more work for the chief if we _do _get out of this. Won't there?"

Dax laughed dryly at Nerys' blunt observation. She shifted another miniscule power chip to a point just two slots from its original position. Time consuming and fiddly… Oh yes, their Chief of Operations was going to _love _that.

"Something tells me that making O'Brien happy is hardly at the top of our intrepid captain's list of concerns."

"True." The major's answering smile was every bit as taut and anxious. "Let's just hope this scheme of yours works out."

With the final connections now in place, Jadzia hauled herself upright and worked to loosen the aching muscles of her neck and shoulders. "Believe me," she replied. "I'm hoping."


	26. Chapter 26

_We have to be getting closer by now_, thought Sisko as he struggled to push back his mounting impatience. He was grateful at least for his ability to hide those same feelings from the eyes of his crew. But in a ship that was regularly accustomed to journeying from star to star at many times the speed of light, the jolting crawl in which they were currently engaged seemed to stretch the progression of time to infinity.

_Wait_… Patience was essential, especially in this case, while they inched through a narrow enough passage to nudge against their outer edges. At least the modified shields were holding. _And you'd do well to count your blessings wherever you can find them_.

The reminder did little to improve his mood, but Sisko took the chance to allow himself a mental aside. He would have to congratulate the Old Man at the very next opportunity. Even so, it was far more important for now to keep his focus on their descent.

"Fire starboard thrusters, single burst. Ten degrees to port…" His voice was as quiet as the long, throaty growl of a stalking tiger.

"Ten degrees to port, aye Sir."

He locked his gaze on the tiny icon on his monitor as it inched through the narrow gap - surrounded on every side by certain destruction. Sisko barely felt the vibration of displaced energy across the deck - the subtle shift in direction and possibly even gravitational force - but he imagined that he felt it all the same.

He was awoken from these wandering contemplations by a sudden jolt, strong and unexpected enough to rattle his bones. "_Careful_…" he rumbled.

Jadzia Dax responded with a shrug, and an apologetic grimace that was only half a smile.

"Just keep her steady." Sisko continued to watch the diagrams in front of him. But at the very edge of his vision, he saw that Odo had gripped the back of the major's chair. The changeling constable recovered quickly, brushing an open palm across it as though merely clearing a patch of dust from the upholstery. Kira spared a brief, querying glance his way, but seemed to accept that he was not about to provide her with answers.

There was another farm more difficult turn coming up in Eiyon's indicated thoroughfare. "Take her to port again," Captain Sisko commanded. "And then an immediate single burst to starboard. Carefully - this one's going to be tight."

He released a breath as the ship negotiated and finally cleared this particularly tricky bend. "Good work, people."

But the tension of the moment still remained across his shoulders. He would not release it until he knew for certain that his ship and its crew were safely at the other side.

"Now…" He dropped his voice to a clear but barely audible whisper. "Steady as she goes."

_Can't be too long from here_…

* * *

"Listen." Miles rose to his feet, lifting his fretful gaze to the cavern's dark ceiling.

Julian paused. "What?"

"That voice. Don't tell me you didn't hear…"

Frowning, and with his jaw still tight as a coiled spring, the doctor stopped again to consider his answer.

"Possibly…"

"It's a message," Miles insisted, and stepped away just a little more. His voice was taut and low. Watching him, Julian was quickly reminded of his own rapid, wary pulse still throbbing behind his aching head. As he manoeuvred himself to press his back more closely against the stone, he followed the direction of his friend's still wide-eyed gaze.

There _had _been something immediately before the chief's reaction, but Julian was far from certain that what he'd sensed could be defined as a voice - or even a sound. A thought, perhaps. Something not entirely external and yet still not quite his own. Whispered knowledge, quiet, amorphous, brushing lightly against his perception.

Miles turned back. "Someone's coming," he hissed, and Bashir gradually discovered that he was nodding in agreement. That much was clear by now, even though it had been the final piece of information to slide into place. He echoed O'Brien's hushed tones.

"…Coming for us."

* * *

"We're through."

Dax was first to say it, the relief in her voice as evident as she was certain that it showed from behind her eyes. Even the Defiant seemed to release some of the tension it was holding, and steadied as though sharing their sudden happiness at finding itself intact.

The Science Officer cast a backward glance at where Eiyon watched from the edge of the bridge - the same place at which Odo had been standing barely two hours earlier. The Vorta had offered to remain on board as a token of good faith. "To demonstrate to you that my intentions are sincere," had been his explanation. "If you die, I die - so I have as much invested in the validity of this plan as any of you."

Whatever he may have thought of their success was trapped behind a mask of absolute calm, and Jadzia found herself pondering whether it would not be easier to discover the emotions of a bulkhead, or the ship's computer.

"Reading two life signs on the surface," Kira announced. It seemed that a hopeful air - placed on hold for their difficult descent - had returned to all their voices. She smiled. "Human."

Eiyon's face grew just a little smug, and Dax wondered if there was a particular Dominionese expression for _I told you so_.

_But there's no time to ponder that now_, she thought.

The captain barely seemed to notice. "Can we get a lock?" His voice filled with hopeful concern as he directed his question towards his old friend.

"Negative, Captain." Dax shook her head, quiet disappointment now creeping into her reply. "There's some kind of interference building in the upper and middle atmosphere. We can't possibly get them away, especially from so far underground."

"Underground?" Sisko leaned forward, both hands pressed together against his sparsely peppered beard.

"That's right." Dax felt the admission stick in her throat. "It looks like the only way we're going to be able to retrieve them is if _we _go down to the surface from _here_."


	27. Chapter 27

"The major and I will beam to the planet," Sisko decided with little hesitation. "The rest of you remain behind for now. You have the bridge, Old Man."

He turned to go. "Major? Shall we?"

Propelling herself from her chair, Kira Nerys was quick to follow her captain out of the room, but it did not take either of them long to realise that they were not the only ones to have left the bridge.

Beside the transporters, Sisko paused and turned to face two pairs of anticipating sky-blue eyes. Jadzia Dax had followed closely behind the smooth-faced Security Chief. Sisko turned instead to the latter. "Problem, Constable?"

"Not at all, Captain," responded Odo. "Nevertheless I would be much obliged if you would permit me to accompany the away team."

"Why?"

Instead of answering, the constable shifted uncomfortably and glanced around him. With a sudden burst of understanding, Sisko had to fight an urge to smile. There were times when even the most unknown reaches of the galaxy could be so much easier to accustom oneself to than the not quite familiar surrounds of a half-known ship. He wished that he could oblige the constable's request, but there were more important concerns to occupy his mind and dictate his choices.

Feeling his share of the disappointment he was certain would result, Ben Sisko shook his head. "Not on this trip, Odo. I need you here."

Odo said nothing, although he appeared to shift just subtly backwards, and Sisko lowered his voice until it barely carried across the room. "Besides, if you're down on the planet with us, then who'll keep an eye on our Vorta friend?"

"I understand," Odo concluded. "You want me to watch Eiyon."

He was answered with a definitive nod.

"Do you think he could still be a problem, Benjamin?" asked Dax. Sisko redirected his attention to her.

"Don't you? He's led us safely this far, which is why I've allowed him to remain on board. But it doesn't follow that I would be the one to trust him."

"That's understandable," muttered Kira.

Dax smiled. "Well… I'll say one thing for your scheme. That could be just the thing to keep our friend in line, if he knows that one of his gods is watching his every move."

Odo stiffened. "I am _not _a god."

"If it makes you feel any better," Jadzia called from behind him. "I'll put off my own conversion to changeling worship for another year, or two hundred."

Sisko stifled his own answering chuckle - just in time. For his part, Odo's eyes exuded a proud yet somewhat wounded expression. Considering the toughened Security man he seemed to like presenting himself as, the constable was remarkably easy to tease.

"Just take care of my ship, Old Man." Stepping onto the transporter pad, Sisko wished that he could entirely believe her assessment of the situation. But the joke she'd made regarding his motives was quite true. It was more than Odo's role as Chief of Security that had informed the decision to leave him behind. "Try not to let her drop out of the sky."

Jadzia's eyes sparkled. "Well I can't _promise _anything, but I'll do my best."

But then she took on a far more serious countenance. "Good luck, Benjamin."

The captain nodded. "To all of us."

* * *

The ground beneath him was not particularly uneven, but Julian Bashir stumbled a little as the chief reached down to haul him upright. Letting go of O'Brien's proffered hand, he fell back against the wall and noted that the same throbbing headache had barely receded since their arrival.

"You know what will happen once they reach us," he began, with a glance over his left shoulder. "Whoever it is, they won't let us go any further. They'll take us all the way back, maybe even to the very beginning."

"Can't let them do that," confirmed Miles. In spite of how the motion of his head was causing the ground to rock and sway, Julian nodded.

"Quickly, though."

His companion hoisted the bag of supplies once again across his shoulders. "I got some lights in this thing," he said. "And heaps of caving gear. We can get pretty deep down from here."

"Wouldn't it…?" Julian paused to rub away the pain still burrowing into his temple, and tried again. "Wouldn't it be easier to make for the surface instead? We'd move much faster in the open."

"So would they," Miles pointed out, and looked surprised to see his friend smile.

"But we'd have a head start, with an infinite number of places to go."

"They'll beam us off to goodness knows where the moment they manage to get a lock."

There was silence - and no good answer to offer that particular impediment. Instead of remarking on Bashir's dumb stare, the chief paused for a moment, and scratched one side of his scalp. "Unless…" he murmured to himself. "There _might _be a way to…" He stopped short, grinning, and seemed to remember only at the last moment that it was a bad idea to slap his friend excitably on the shoulder.

"Up it is then," he enthused. "Let's go."

* * *

Kira held back a gasp, and turned to look behind her - at the subtle blue-green light passing swiftly across the far end of the passage.

"What is it?" Sisko's voice was close at her ear. Holding a palm torch level with the top of one shoulder, Kira sighed.

She shook her head. "Nothing," was her answer. "Probably just some kind of insect. Either that, or the dark's playing tricks on my eyes."

Caught in the glare of artificial light, whatever peculiar, shifting glow she thought she'd seen had just as suddenly vanished. But without their narrow, unfaltering torch beams, the cave around them was dark enough to render both officers entirely blind. Their footsteps were augmented, echoing impossibly loudly in the otherwise near-constant silence.

Kira's gaze flicked back and forth - from the farthest visible stones to the display on her open tricorder. It was picking up a signal. Marching confidently over the rocky terrain, she pointed. "This way." Even at a whisper, her voice was bone-joltingly loud as it travelled forward and back again along the indicated tunnel.

A subtle flash of apprehension passed across the captain's face, but disappeared almost at the instant Kira had noticed any change. Ben Sisko was more stoic about accepting difficult challenges than several other Starfleet officers she knew, although his eyes still blazed with a potent fury.

Their present setting was far more familiar to the major. There was a time when the remote network of caverns around Dahkur Province had been a shelter for her - a lifeline. And she was smaller and more supple than her commanding officer. Even so, she knew better than to underestimate either the doctor or Chief O'Brien. It was barely a minute since she'd found their abandoned campfire - evidence enough that both men knew they were being pursued. But the question of how they knew was not so important that it could not wait. At least for a more opportune moment.

This was looking to be a far from easy chase. Scrambling underground - both in and out of the confines of a holosuite - was a favourite past-time of O'Brien's. He had the experience, and Bashir had that kind of compact, wiry body that could squeeze through practically any narrow space. "I'll go first," Kira offered under her breath, and responded instantly to the captain's answering nod. Transferring the palm torch to her left hand, she sidestepped determinedly through the narrowest part of this nearby trench.

The next chamber they finally came to was just as empty as every other. But when Kira turned to Sisko, she raised a finger to her lips. The captain nodded. He had heard the same thing. From some place only slightly distant from their location, there were voices. They were also just as hushed, but clearer than they had been now that the away team had identified what to listen for.

Sisko and Kira were getting close.


	28. Chapter 28

Miles O'Brien had not been counting the number of times he'd stopped and turned to look behind him. But he supposed this must have been at least the fifth. If not the tenth. "You sure you're all right?" He kept his voice as low as he could make it, but with just enough volume that he could still be heard. It wasn't the first time he'd asked that question either.

Head bowed, and with the fingers of his right hand still tracing the line of the nearest wall, Julian nodded. But his steps were unsteady. He'd negotiated the maze of scattered rocks with the clumsiness of a Algorian ground sloth rather than the confidence of the sure-footed young doctor Miles knew him to be: The same doctor who continued to defeat him at more games of racquetball than was entirely fair.

"Fine," he grumbled a little hoarsely.

"Sure?" repeated Miles. A frown was gathering on his high, round forehead.

But when they finally revealed themselves, his companion's eyes burned with hard determination. "I'm _fine_." His second response was louder than the first. "You want to get away from here, don't you?"

"Course I do, but…"

"Then let's get on with it."

It was difficult to tell which part of the inextricable mix of pain, irritation, and sheer pig-headedness had caused the doctor's jaw to clench so tightly. But Miles was just as capable of matching his friend's stubborn attitude when the situation called for it. Besides, there was still that memory from back at the shuttle, just before the fiery explosion that had nearly claimed them both, of how easy it could have been to abandon his own best friend to chance.

_Not again_, he promised himself. _Not if I have any say in the matter_.

Both men saw the lights that continued to shift in and out of view, nothing at all this time like O'Brien had imagined seeing during his earlier expedition. These were steady, coldly white, and narrow. And when they'd first noticed them, he and Julian had been quick to note their resemblance to the Chief's own palm beacon.

_Bad news_, thought O'Brien, but the light was not the only thing to catch his eye. He paused half way along the high-ceilinged chamber.

"Wait a moment…" Keeping his voice to a whisper, he pressed one hand against the base of what looked like a long and jagged tunnel, lined with the same powdery rock on every side. He leaned closer and squinted upwards, shining his torch beam directly into it. Just as he thought, the tunnel continued at a steep but not unmanageable angle, running straight up until shadows and texture obscured the artificial light.

"Now _that's _better." Miles laughed under his breath, and directed his next words to Julian. "I'll bet this could take us all the way up if we wanted it to."

"You think so?"

O'Brien frowned, troubled. There had been an unnervingly long silence before Julian responded to his words.

"Well, yeah. Sure. I'm no expert, but I'd guess this goes quite some distance. So - you up for a challenge?"

"I… I don't know."

So suddenly that the motion brought the slightest ache into his head, O'Brien jerked away from the mouth of the tunnel. "What?"

"Miles." Julian grimaced as he dropped onto the nearest protruding rock. "I don't think I can get through there."

"What are you talking about?" the Chief growled, turning so quickly that he almost overbalanced. "Whatever happened to, 'Don't worry. I'm fine'? Or was that someone else's voice I've been hearing the whole time?"

But an attempt to haul the doctor to his feet was met with an agonised shout of protest that was very nearly a scream. Miles stepped back, teeth clenched, glancing warily about him as the sound echoed sharply off every wall.

Breathing heavily, eyes closed as tightly as they would go, Bashir's jaw locked in a tight-throated groan. The fingers of his damaged left arm had curled into a claw, which he cradled tightly against his chest.

"Sorry…" gasped Miles, even as he silently cursed his own blatant stupidity.

"I guess…" Bashir took a long breath in and out through his mouth. "I guess I was wrong. One of the dangers of self diagnosis, I suppose."

His eyes opened, and instantly made contact with those of his companion. "You'll have to keep going without me."

* * *

"What was that?"

Heart suddenly pounding, Kira was unable to hold in the near silent hiss that escaped without warning from her mouth, and shaped itself just as unexpectedly into words. There was no reason to have asked. She knew exactly what that painful cry had been, but could only ever guess at its cause. Even now, she imagined her ears still aching from the last residual echoes.

She exchanged a brief and tension-filled glance with the captain, and both knew instantly that there was no real need for him to speak. If there had ever been a moment when they had wavered from their purpose, that moment was entirely gone. Almost as though with miniature thrusters attached to their heels and ankles, Sisko and Kira surged forward together, both newly determined to reach the source of all those clearly alarming sounds.

* * *

"Get out of here," Julian insisted fiercely. "Just… _go_."

"Positive?" Both the Chief's hands and one knee were already fixed upon the open ledge, with the palm torch wedged between his fingers and the stone beneath. But he turned again to glance over one shoulder at the face of his friend.

"What's the worst that can happen?" With the lights already getting much closer, Julian calculated their distance at just under half of what it had been when they'd first come into view. He fought to stop his mind from running through every possible answer, and instead allowed his expression to harden - just a little.

Miles seemed to hesitate.

"Go _on_." Bashir swung his good arm around in a wide arc, as if to push the reluctant engineer all the way through the tunnel. "I can't follow you now. But I will, all right? And don't think I failed to notice how much you've been longing for a break from my company."

Miles snickered. "Well, if you put it like _that_…"

Suddenly, Bashir tensed, with a sharp intake of air through his teeth. "Just don't go having _too _much fun without me," he whispered, somewhat hurriedly.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

And with that, O'Brien was gone, fading to invisibility as his light disappeared along the tunnel.

Leaning back once more, Julian sensed the touch of rough stone across his shoulders. He closed his eyes, and allowed himself a series of slightly ragged, heavy breaths. He could hear the approach of voices - a man and a woman - both of them instantly familiar, and when he finally let his eyelids open again, a narrow beam moved into his field of vision and held him trapped in an intense spotlight. Raising one hand, he squinted towards it and attempted to shield his face against the glare.

"All right," he told the silhouettes behind it, although they had taken on no more detail than mere shadows. "You got me. I surrender."


	29. Chapter 29

A sudden burst of ice cold air raked painfully over Miles' skin in the instant that he was finally able to wriggle free. Even the thoughts within his head were immediately dulled by this sudden, constrictive chill, which seemed to clench even tighter than the stone of the tunnel had done.

His final titanic effort was aided by a wordless yell that tore at his throat, and he forced his way out through a particularly elbow-scraping gap at the tunnel's end. The rock pressed roughly against his chest, even as he tumbled away and found himself confronted by a desolate, windswept, and seemingly endless plain.

Rust stained fog swirled in thickly morphing shapes around him, catching in a fine red layer across the sweat of his skin. From the sudden dry pain in his eyes, he supposed that much of the colour had originated in the same red dust as the rock of the planet's caves. But whatever matter was held within this cloud was still too fine to distinguish any individual grains. Even what he saw of the ground was allowed only a momentary chance to settle before it was snatched up again by the prevailing gales.

As he struggled to his feet, Miles squinted through half blind, tear soaked eyes. But it did not take long for dust to settle and congeal inside them. And in his mouth, his nose, his throat… Even the waxy coating in his ears had not been spared.

With the difficulty of standing in the constant wind, his attempts to move about were close to laughable. The weather assaulted him from every angle - and he wondered at the friction this would cause. How could any atmosphere bear the pressure of such unrelenting conflict? Rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand, he supposed he could see the answer - several glimpses of lightening, flashing dully somewhere high above.

"Your turn," he called, and felt immediately silly, uncertain as to who could be near enough to hear his challenge. His mouth was dry and dusty, and his voice failed to achieve the resounding bellow he had been hoping for, but he still felt an increasing degree of certainty - that absolute conviction that he had to have been heard.

So Miles Edward O'Brien continued to shout. "Well? I've followed you this far, haven't I? What am I supposed to do now?"

It took barely a moment, but soon the fog was changing - shaping itself into something solid but at the same time almost too dim for the Chief to see, until it was finally so clear that his senses barely had room for anything else.

Yellow eyes narrowed as though in cold contemplation. The bright, clear lemon of both irises bore sharp contrast to the black of each upright oblong of their pupils. They studied him, scrutinising every detail, penetrating even the thickest, driest cloud as though this solid cover had never been an obstacle.

_Well_? O'Brien forced this silent, rebellious thought all the way beyond the wind and dust. _Go on then. Get on with it_.

The slithering, ticklish chill that had plagued him from the very beginning was back, its demands every bit as strong as he imagined they could ever be. Glancing down, Miles saw that goose pimples had risen all over the skin of both his forearms. Even his hands were suddenly numb to everything but cold and pain. He shuddered. Finally, as though from far away and yet as close as if it was speaking in his ear, came that same detached, slightly echoing, too oft-repeated voice.

"_This way_."

But first, there was something he had to do.

* * *

"I'm getting a signal from the surface." It was the dark haired, dark eyed ensign who had replaced Kira at her station.

Almost bounding across the room, Dax was quick to reach the same young woman's side. "Let's see it."

A few seconds later, she found herself muting a long, calming breath that passed through her lips. "That's Human, all right. They must have been trying to outrun the captain, and made directly for the open air."

"I'm establishing a lock." The dark eyed woman began her commentary without having to be prompted. "It's a little difficult with all this ionisation in the atmosphere, but not impossible."

Dax smiled her thanks and clasped the ensign's shoulder before spinning on her heel and striding away from the bridge. "Security to the transporter bay," she snapped, confident that the internal comm system would pick up the sound of her voice.

It was Odo who met her at their destination, accompanied by a burly looking Starfleet lieutenant - the one with the wispy, sandy coloured hair and a nigh impenetrable expression upon his face. Dax was quick to explain precisely what she expected to happen.

"But I do have one question," she added. "Weren't you supposed to be watching Eiyon?"

The constable responded with a brief, sharp grunt. "Never fear, Commander. I have two of my men posted constantly outside his quarters. And judging from his lack of activity up to now, he does not appear to require a significant amount of watching."

_Even so_… thought Jadzia. She had her misgivings, but supposed that Odo's judgement in such matters was very rarely unsound.

She nodded, conceding. "Fair enough."

They stood in silent anticipation, and watched the transporter. Without turning to look directly, Dax saw the lieutenant's hand tense as it hovered mere centimetres from the phaser at his hip. _Just as long as he doesn't fire at anyone_, she thought. _Not unless it's absolutely necessary_.

But that was something else she'd quickly learnt about Odo. The officers under his command were meticulously trained, certainly as well as any regiment she'd encountered in all the years of her symbiont's life. At that moment, the understanding left her with one important certainty. No officer of Odo's was about to turn unnecessarily trigger happy. Especially not with the changeling close by to bear witness to every move they made.

Jadzia held her breath as the light began to sparkle and solidify. But her expectant silence turned gradually to uncertainty, and finally to disappointment. She frowned. The shape congealing in front of her was tiny - barely larger than one of her hands. Too small by far to have come from anything humanoid.

_Because it's not_, she realised. Instead of a prisoner, she and the waiting Security officers were confronted by a compact, rectangular, matte grey box. The only part of it that moved were the coloured lights blinking and shifting at its edges. Jadzia knew in an instant what it had to be. A tricorder. Almost certainly set to emit a falsely Human signal.

A decoy.

* * *

Miles O'Brien felt a rush of gleeful pride when he thought about his latest bit of ingenuity. Of course, it would mean that he no longer had access to a working tricorder. But it had been well worth that minor sacrifice, especially to see the tiny instrument gradually lost behind a haze of shimmering light.

A moment was all he could allow, before shining his torch deep into every pocked and textured corner of this latest passage to which he had been led. It was dark, almost entirely shut off from the meagre outdoor light. But piece by piece, he was beginning to get a better idea of its nature.

_Another cave_, he thought. _Nothing more, nothing less_.

…And nothing particularly remarkable, either. This was darker and more solid than the first, and the rocks at tis edges were a little glassy and noticeably more porous. Possibly even volcanic. In some places they bore the consistency of fossilised sponge, and in others they left shallow cuts across his hands. It was vaguely interesting to look at, but he failed to see what logical purpose could have led him to this point.

"So what _am _I doing?" he muttered to himself, and shook his head.

But the voice still called at the back of his mind. And if his eyes had told him correctly, there would almost certainly be a storm brewing before long. _Quite a decent one too_, reflected O'Brien as he peered around the rubble at the cave's dark entrance. He was going to have to move quickly if he was to have any chance of sitting it out.

With a glance at the raging clouds behind him, Miles stepped forward and began another descent.


	30. Chapter 30

They approached the entrance with far less speed than Benjamin Sisko would have preferred, especially after the transponder Dax had equipped them with did nothing to increase their chances of beaming out from below. Kira walked in front, with Sisko bringing up the rear, and the doctor stepping hesitantly between them. They all covered the distance with some trepidation, but the captain still hoped that their arrival at the surface would allow them to discover what had been blocking the transponder's signal.

"It's an ion storm, Captain." Stepping onto the lip of the cave, Major Kira narrowed her eyes to slits and squinted against the billowing sand. Wind whipped at her short auburn hair, giving it the appearance of something writhing and alive. She turned and tucked her tricorder back into her belt. But even at a full shout, her voice was barely able to struggle above the rising noise outside.

"I'd say it's already only half a kilometre from us, coming in from the South. And it _is _approaching. Fast."

"So that was why we couldn't just beam right out." Sisko was no more certain that his voice was audible to anyone but himself.

But Kira responded with a nod, her reply lost behind a renewed gust of wind across the mouth of the cave.

Captain Sisko cupped one hand to his ear, and shook his head for added emphasis.

"I _said_--" The major stepped down until the cave's acoustics were able to lend some clarity to her voice. "We might just have to stay here until it ends. There's too much atmospheric interference, and I doubt even the Defiant would be able to pick up our signals right now."

Shifting one step to the left so that his own eyes had a clearer view of the swirling, flashing, hyper-charged display, the captain hastily tested the combadge on his chest. "Sisko to Defiant."

Nothing.

He paused, and clenched his jaw, refusing to believe that the constant moan of the wind was all there was to hear. Perhaps he'd simply missed the reply. Slapping his badge again so hard that he felt the pain of impact in his chest, he raised his voice to an irritable near shout. "Defiant, respond."

He huffed at the answering silence. Unable to push aside the tension of a troubled frown - which was worsened still further by the frigid gales - he turned first to Kira and then to Bashir. Both were watching him, both pairs of dark eyes glinting in the shadows. And it did not escape his notice that the doctor's face was even more tense and haggard than it had been when they found him, one of his arms tightly clutching the other to his chest.

_I only hope the Chief made it to safety on time_. Ben Sisko glanced over his shoulder as he turned away from the turmoil beyond the cave.

"Then we'll have to sit this one out after all," their captain conceded, a trace of reluctance clear behind his voice. He nodded, only half directing his words at the other waiting officers, and when he spoke, it was not without an edge of defeat. He glared at Bashir on his way past, and the doctor seemed to startle at the anger in his eyes.

* * *

The Chief had always considered himself to be a fairly resourceful man, and not particularly unsuited to physical exercise. But he grunted as he set himself down on the first convenient surface he could find. The light of his torch was shifting a little as it reflected from the glassy rocks of this latest hideaway. And now, with a glance around him, he placed it upon the ground and propped it between his feet, aiming it upwards for a better view.

_This is as good a time as any_, he thought, already sensing the rumbles of his stomach. He did not know when he might get another chance to rest. Ferreting a ration pack from his carry bag, he raised it to his mouth and opened it easily in preparation for a first bite.

He barely even saw the hand that darted down over his left hand shoulder and snatched the rations from his grasp.

"What the…?" he protested, whirling around, but was confronted with nothing but rock. But when he looked closer, he wondered if there wasn't also a touch of distantly retreating blue-green light.

It was not long before the same colours revealed themselves again, this time much closer, from somewhere directly in front of him. And he quickly realised from the growing shadows that his own palm torch was also moving away.

"Oy!"

A tiny creature looked up from its position near the opposite wall, and regarded him with an expression that may have been oddly reminiscent of curiosity. A pale blue glow radiated steadily from a naked body the size of a Human baby - although considerably more slender. But its movements were quick and assured, perhaps even a little jittery, seeming to Miles like those of a smooth skinned, tail-less monkey.

A thin membrane flashed across each of a pair of oil-drop black eyes, close to four times the size of O'Brien's. But after barely a glance in his direction, the alien's attention returned quickly to the palm torch held in both its tiny, long-fingered hands.

_Bioluminescence_, realised Miles with a start. _Of course_. There must have been some kind of internal chemistry causing that peculiar, all-over gleam. Possibly the same mix that fireflies or glow worms used in the lightless spaces of Earth.

_And if Julian were here with me I'm sure he'd find it all _fascinating_. But I'm not Julian and this is more than just a minor nuisance._

The creature lifted the torch up close to its face, and jumped back in apparent alarm at the sudden glare shining directly in its eyes. Before long it had grabbed its prize in one hand and was slapping it against the stone-hard ground.

"Give that back." O'Brien lunged, but his fingers caught nothing but air as the inquisitive alien dodged lithely out of his way.

Several previously unseen shadows alerted him to the presence of still more aliens. One leapt onto his bag, wrapping the elongated fingers of all four limbs around the corners. Its right hand reached inside and came away with three more of the Chief's own ration packs.

"You little…" Growling an impotent curse, O'Brien tugged at his supplies to hoard whatever items he could get his hands on, but the prying blue digits of the alien's companions were quick to scrape away the little that remained of his unappetising meals. Another tiny creature he'd barely noticed attached itself to his shoulders, and tugged curiously at the curls of his hair. Miles swatted it away but failed again to make any contact.

With a series of high pitched squeals that reminded him of Molly crying against the threat of a tickle, yet another blue-green hellion snuck in from Miles' blind spot to snatch the bag in it twig-thin fingers. All others followed its lead as they half scampered, half leapt away down the narrow, winding passage.

"Hey!" shouted Miles, staggering clumsily after them. "Get back here!"

His echoes mingled with the excited caterwauling of the natives, long after every one of his tormentors had vanished from his sight.


	31. Chapter 31

A small pile gathered from O'Brien's store of firewood had taken little trouble to reignite, and now burned again with a soft and steady glow. As the flames gradually settled into a bed of heated embers, their colour shifted to near red - a shade not far distant from that of the surrounding rock. "Waste not," had been the captain's reasoning. After all, the storm outside was well past the point where they could have ventured far enough to mount an effective search for the Chief.

Sisko had been first to insist that they make some use of the mound of carefully gathered fuel. Bashir listened to his arguments, and considered raising some kind of objection. But instead, he huddled against the rock, feeling oddly subdued, and failing to prevent a shudder at the vaguely unnerving shadows that swelled and retreated with the rising fire.

The captain and Major Kira had positioned themselves at the other side of the campfire, shifting a little until its light spread across their faces and reflected from the thin film of moisture on the surface of their eyes.

"I'll tell you one thing," Sisko's level voice sounded to answer an unspoken query in the air. "There's no doubt we'll be sitting this out all night - I'm sure. But I promise you this: It will only be for _one _night."

Something in the tone of this promise easily convinced Julian Bashir that his commanding officer would have raced outside to hold back the storm with his own hands, if that was what it took to get them off the planet. In the meantime, however, their fire could at least provide a little warmth, even if the space around them was too wide for it to offer any real comfort.

It took very little time before Julian was numb from the cold, and he longed with every unhappy thought to escape the vigilant stares of his companions. But wishing for them to leave him be was of as little use as dreaming. The captain had already given him a direct order. Doctor Julian Bashir was forbidden to move; forbidden to shift away from the light of the fire. And there was no way for him to hide from the gaze of those dark and constantly watching eyes.

Logically, of course, he knew it was the right decision to make. More than any of those now sharing their meagre campfire, Julian was most in need of its warmth. It would hardly have made any difference if their attention _did _happen to falter. He doubted that he would have gotten very far, even if he had been able to engineer some form of escape.

Huddling against a groove of the cavern wall, Julian knew above all else that he was alone - cold, isolated, and lonely. But he fixed his own gaze towards his feet, determined to remain as far apart from the captain and the major as they would permit him to be. The little that he could glimpse of their faces was enough to make it clear. They were every bit as aware of his discomfort as he was.

Still, no-one was making any further comments. They chose only to watch as he hunched in the most readily available corner, shivering from so much more than the overpowering chill.

And he could not help but wonder, even then. At what point had they given up trying to approach him? There must have been one - perhaps the same time as they'd finally stopped their attempts to get him to speak of his experience, or to accept their attention, assistance, even distant concern.

There was still that pain, sharp and white hot like a blade through the marrow of his upper arm. But Julian continued to flinch away from the others, drawing both knees up tightly against his chest as a barrier between himself and the watchful eyes of his captain.

Sisko was angry. That much was easy to tell. It would not do to be too openly hostile. But at the same time, Bashir did not want their attention, and he was not in any mood to welcome it. Now painfully aware that he was being observed, the young doctor rested his head against a smooth patch of stone, closed his eyes, and doubted his chances of ever finding sleep.

* * *

Sisko adjusted his position enough to allow some circulation to return to his legs, and rubbed a little of the prickly aridity from his eyes. Bashir was sleeping restlessly, his face touched by an occasional tight-knit frown. Kira continued to watch them both, alert and straight-backed upon her rocky perch. But Sisko was satisfied for the moment to turn his conversation to other things.

"There's an old children's song," he was saying. "--That people used to sing on Earth. A lot of it is nonsense, all about church bells and market traders. But then…"

"Church bells?" the major interrupted, sounding confused.

Sisko paused a moment before elaborating. But for some reason he was careful to keep his voice low, part of him still not wanting to wake the doctor. "It's not so different from the chime that sounds on the Promenade. Several Human cultures also used to call people to religious services by ringing bells…"

His voice trailed to silence, and he shifted again to stare into the flames. They rose briefly, sparking with a sharp, noisy crack. "If I recall correctly," he continued. "The song finishes something like…"

Now his speech took on a rhythmic, almost playful tone - as though in time to the dancing of the fire. He began to chant. "_Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head_."

"What does it mean?" asked Kira.

Grabbing a slender twig from somewhere by his feet, Sisko prodded the embers and tossed this poker into the hungry flames. "It's a warning," he told her. "Never trust anyone, especially those who claim that they only want to help. It's strange, but… Whenever I think about the Vorta, I just can't help but be reminded."

"I can certainly understand that," the major remarked. She turned to her captain with a lopsided, quirky smile. "When did Human children come to know so much about Dominion politics?"

Sisko's unhappy laughter echoed briefly from the cavern walls.

* * *

The time that Eiyon had already spent aboard the Federation warship had so far been full of curiosities. He could have learnt an awful lot about these aliens - all useful information to take back to the Dominion. He was convinced that he could turn the experience into something more than fascinating, and the Founders might even have been pleased with his efforts. If only the Defiant's crew had not prevented him from getting anywhere useful.

Since his success in assisting their descent into the Whirlpool, Eiyon had been pushed to the sidelines, deposited in this small, bare room like a piece of now-extraneous cargo. The Founder called Odo made no secret of the fact that he was observing their unusual passenger. And the Vorta had no doubt whatever that his surveillance was deliberately obvious. Even now, two of the changeling's minions were barely a step from the nearest door.

_One good blow to the back of their necks. At that hollow point where their skulls meet their spines…_

It was little more than a passing thought - solely for the sake of his own amusement. But as he sat on the mattress of one of those smooth Starfleet bunks, he discovered that his mind had continued to expand on this brief but attractive idea.

The Jem'Hadar would doubtless know several even more efficient ways to deal with the Human guards. It might even have provided some measure of entertainment, to have been allowed a squadron or two to accompany him. _Entertaining_, he thought, locking his hands together across his knees. _But complicated_. In general he found Jem'Hadar to be rather distasteful creatures. Not at all subtle, and far too ready to answer every quarrel with violence.

Still, they had their uses.

Rising again to his feet, the Vorta Eiyon turned his pure-blue eyed gaze to the door, and contemplated what his next move ought to be.

A corner of the bunk was starting to melt away, colours shifting to soft ripples of amber, complete with the curious light that seemed to glow dimly through the thickly congealed, semi-liquid mass. Eiyon held his breath. His instinctive reaction to the sight of these transformations had never fallen short of absolute awe. The word was past his lips much sooner than he was able to prevent it. "Founder."

Odo shaped himself gradually into his humanoid form, moulding his body from the ankles up and already with his arms folded sternly in front of him. He cocked his head slightly and stared at the much smaller Vorta, whose own hands were outstretched into a reverent pose.

"I told you when you came here," the changeling insisted. "I am a Security Officer, not a Founder."

"My apologies," Eiyon responded automatically. "I was merely…"

"…Merely planning to take a stroll through the corridors?" Odo tilted his head upwards, stopping the coming answer before it could continue. "It would be better for you if you refrained from exercising such desires."

"As you say," agreed Eiyon. With a grunt of annoyance, Odo departed. The Vorta looked up to watch him disappear through the door, and pause only to nod to one of his Security men.

_He might not consider himself a Founder_, the small, dark-haired creature pondered. _But he does command these humanoids, and they obey his commands_. So much about his current position made so little sense. But still, the Founders were wise in all things. The ways of gods, even contrary gods like Odo, were not for their servants to question.


	32. Chapter 32

Crouched at the centre of an all-encompassing darkness, with no lights remaining to reveal the path in front of him, Miles O'Brien was struggling to decide if the heat beneath his face was the result of anger, frustration, or even despair. But he was still less certain that there had ever been a clear distinction between the three. And God knew, he was no psychologist.

He focused on those things to which he could attach some degree of clarity. He was alone in the dark, entirely blind, at least for the moment. All his supplies had vanished along with the retreating aliens. Even his palm torch, which might have aided him in some semblance of a pursuit, was no longer in his possession. Not that he would have had much chance of success. If there was anything he could say with any certainty about these creatures, it was that they were significantly better adapted to the jagged corridors than he could ever hope to be.

"So what now?" he growled at the cavern walls, which offered no more answers than the empty echoes of his own gruff complaint.

O'Brien snorted. "Fat lot of help _you _are."

As the reverberations continued to fade from his hearing, he squirmed uncomfortably, wriggling around the claustrophobic space until he faced back in the direction from which he had come. With the silence of the cave unlikely to yield anything of any further use, he supposed that he must have only two real options left. He could crawl back to the dust and constant wind, picking his way blindly over the rocks. Or he could sit in the cave and wait until his skin withered to nothing and his bones lay dry as the stones around him.

_You're getting too old for this_, he scolded himself, useless eyes still searching desperately for something on which to focus. He doubted that he would get very far if he chose to face the elements once more. Not without supplies. Still feeling agitated, irritable, and now entirely impotent, he settled back to wait.

* * *

"What I don't understand," said Kira Nerys, as she glanced uneasily at their bleak surroundings. "Is what exactly we're doing _here_. Out of all the places in the universe we could have ended up, what could possibly be so special about this one?"

"If it makes you feel any better, Major--" Sisko snorted unhappily, but did not take his eyes away from the dim firelight. "I'm at every bit as much of a loss as you are."

"We were supposed to find something."

There was silence. Finally, with a momentary grimace and a grunt of discomfort, muscles stiff as grinding stone, Julian Bashir fully opened his eyes and located both their staring faces.

The major and the captain were looking back at his, Kira's eyes round as though caught by surprise. Of course, realised Julian. More likely than not, they must have believed that he had already gone to sleep.

He shifted, wincing from the effort. "There was something on this planet," he continued, relieved to find that his voice was still clear - in spite of his inability to force it above a soft half whisper. "Somewhere not far from here. And…"

"What?" demanded Major Kira, leaning forward, anticipating.

Bashir closed his eyes again with another tight frown. Nerys' shout had brought back the previously forgotten pain at one side of his head. He spoke cautiously, wary of any further bouts of discomfort. "Not sure, exactly. There's a ship of some sort. Perhaps a device on board. And it's supposed to help, somehow. Then after that, we were… We had to…"

Sisko glared at him, dark eyes demanding more. "Had to what, Doctor?"

"I don't know." With a shake of his head, Bashir lowered his gaze towards the floor of the cave and a random scattering of small pebbles at his feet. If he could only sort through the tangle of his own thoughts. But he was far too tired. His head ached, and the pain remained inside him to cast away what little sleep he might have found.

"They're not telling me." He shook his head again. "I'm sorry, Captain. I… I just don't _know_."

* * *

"Don't angry children," whispered a voice, deep, clear - but at the same time a little childish. And without any definite, identifiable source.

"Children?" O'Brien spoke to the darkness, and was struck by a sudden, peculiar realisation. "What - are those things your kids?"

He thought about the gang of screaming menaces that he'd had the misfortune to encounter earlier. Well, their behaviour certainly fit.

"Don't angry children."

"Well, if you _really _don't want to see me angry, then someone had better give me back my gear," insisted Miles. The blackness around him was steadily infused with a soft aqua-blue light - at first almost too dim to see. But as they adjusted, the Chief's eyes saw it shifting, growing as it came closer, and taking on what could have been a nearly solid form.

This alien was barely tall enough to reach O'Brien's chest, but it was easily twice the size of the scavengers that had preceded it. Limbs swung in a slow, fluid motion as it stepped towards him and crouched smoothly at his side. "Gear?" it said, with softly flowing speech, the consonants especially subdued and foreign. Large, black eyes studied him curiously, intelligently, and with an intensity that drew O'Brien's attention like a magnet.

"That's right." He pointed to the travel pack still clasped in the alien's delicate fingers. "My gear."

"Gear." Every movement graceful and calculated, the alien placed the bag at O'Brien's feet. He smiled as he took it and secretly checked to be sure that nothing was missing.

Nothing was. "Thank you," Miles told the peculiar blue-green visitor.

The alien's dark eyes continued to watch him inscrutably. "Don't angry children."

Miles sighed. "And yes - you can tell those kids of yours that I'm not angry any more." He thought he caught something in the resident alien's deep black eyes. Could it have been pleasure, or more possibly relief?

_But how would you ever know_? he wondered.

Lifting one elongated arm, the alien now pointed further along the cave. "Ship," it said.

O'Brien frowned. "What?"

"Ship."

"There's a ship?" He nodded in the same direction, and turned back again, a query forming in his greyish hazel eyes. "Down there?"

"Ship," his visitor confirmed. "Makes fly, Chief."

O'Brien started. "Wait a minute. How'd you know…?"

And suddenly, everything was dark.


	33. Chapter 33

With no real change in the light levels within, there was also no way to be certain if the morning had even arrived. Ben Sisko supposed that the approach of dawn would make very little difference, even from outside the network of caves. With a fleeting glance at his personal chronometer, he hoped at least that the storm would have passed by now. But he'd seen very little evidence from orbit that the nearest star was close enough to influence any of this planet's global weather patterns.

"Up," he told both of his companions, who blinked at him through half closed eyes. Sisko was the first of them to rise to his feet, muscles protesting inaudibly as they clicked back into place. He rubbed his aching neck, the stiffness entirely unhelped by the cold of a stone bed and a long-dark fire.

As Bashir and Kira followed his example, Sisko made a renewed attempt to contact the Defiant.

"_Dax here_," came a disembodied reply, which barely echoed around the cave.

_At last_, he thought, glancing upwards as he released a quick breath, and with it some of the pressure that had gathered in his muscles. _At last, a bit of good luck_. Jadzia's was the most welcome voice he'd heard since their away mission had begun.

He stepped towards the other officers in the cave, instinctively positioning himself at their side. "Good to hear you're still around, old man. But I think it's time for us to check out of here."

* * *

Jadzia Dax watched as three narrow towers of light shimmered into solid existence like a trio of waterfalls on the clean smooth surface of the transporter pad. "Julian!" she exclaimed. But her sudden burst of delight was extinguished by the look on the doctor's face - and even further by his battered and filthy condition. One arm was wrapped in a dust-stained navy blue sling, and he was propped against Kira with his other arm draped around her shoulders for support. Their eyes met, and Dax shuddered at the intensity that burned behind them.

And there was at least one noticeable absence at their reunion. Dax looked around at all three faces, and finally back at Benjamin's. "Where's the Chief?"

"We don't know." Even to Dax's ears, her captain sounded irritable. Stepping down, he nodded briefly to a pair of Security officers who waited and watched behind the dark-haired Trill. And something about his simmering dark eyes stopped Jadzia before she could press the issue any further.

She turned instead to Julian. "Come on," she told him, extending one hand and threading it around his uninjured arm. She felt him tense as though startled, and it worried her that he had still not spoken. "No arguments now, Julian. You and I are going to sickbay."

Bashir allowed her to lead him away from the transporter pad as the two Security men fell into step behind them.

* * *

Miles opened his eyes - slowly at first, but then more suddenly - and regretted it in an instant, as a headache clamped around every square inch of his brow. But open or closed, it made little difference to the overall view. He discovered no more than the same disconcerting blindness, eyes straining to peer into the dark and receiving nothing in return.

Already feeling stiff and irascible, he forced himself up onto aching knees and rubbed the skin of his face where it had pressed against the hard floor of the cave. How long had he been there? He could hardly tell. Certainly long enough to feel the residual pressure upon his skin. He looked around, but all remaining signs of life were gone, vanished so completely that his pale blue companion and all of its children could just as well have been little more than a dream. Frowning, still sightless, and with the same dull headache pulsing deep inside his skull, he wondered if they had ever been any more substantial than sensory echoes - visions come to haunt a man who'd been sitting far too long in the dark.

But then his hands fumbled in the nearby space, sensing a smooth, flattened plane which did not feel like the stone of a cavern. Systematically moving in ever widening arcs, Miles' hand finally located something solid and familiar, and closed around the fabric of his stiff-edged bag.

_Well, at least that's still here. _And if he remembered correctly, there ought to be that small palm torch still tucked inside. Somewhere…

"Got it!" O'Brien hissed triumphantly, fingers locating the sturdy case that protected the light's inner circuitry. He grimaced with the effort of carefully manoeuvring it from the very bottom corner, but allowed himself time enough to pull the torch free of surrounding paraphernalia.

The light responded instantly to his touch upon the switch, a thin but adequate beam by which he could finally make out part of the nearby surroundings. Glancing around at all he finally saw, Miles failed to hold back a cry of pure astonishment.

He realised only then that he'd long suspected that the texture of the floor could not possibly be natural. The lighting was still scarce, in its own way rendering his surroundings eerie and peculiar. But he took no time to recognise exactly where he found himself, and it was not the stone of a cave he saw.

The smooth, slightly confining walls, hard floor, panels dividing one section from the other, and even the layout of controls at its bow. It was all so instantly, unavoidably familiar.

That strange blue alien had told him the truth. There was a ship to be found, and Chief O'Brien's torch was revealing more and more of its interior. It was clean and new, with little sign of deterioration or even scuff marks on the walls. In remarkably good condition for a vessel abandoned in the depths of some remotely distant cave. More than that, it was a Starfleet runabout.

* * *

"We managed to keep her in orbit for you, Benjamin." Jadzia stood in the corridor, a smile forming on her lips as she spoke to him in that characteristically breathy voice of hers. But the smile did not reach the clear blue of her eyes. "Just as I said we would."

"I never doubted it." Sisko had followed her as far as the Defiant's sickbay, but rather than entering, he waited until she stepped outside. He paused, the next question already forming on his face before he spoke it out loud. "What about Eiyon?"

"Nothing eventful to report," his long-time friend responded. Both had lowered their voices as though by tacit agreement - even though there was no-one passing close enough to hear them. But as she glanced through the door to sickbay, her own face took on a decidedly anxious turn.

"I take it you didn't find O'Brien either?" the slight whisper continued behind the captain's words.

"We lost all other trace of Human bio-signs only moments before you beamed on board," Dax told him. "I was hoping that you…"

"I know," answered Benjamin, his words accompanied by a humourless snort. "So was I."

But stewing in their shared disappointment was hardly productive. They had not found their Chief Engineer, and that was that. Running over past mistakes wasn't half as important as deciding what their next move ought to be. And if only there was a way to get something useful from Doctor Bashir… But the doctor had been as reticent as he was stubborn.

"We need more information." Sisko rubbed the top of his head. "There has to be a way to know what we're up against."

"Perhaps," Dax agreed. "But right now Julian's more skittish than a startled rabbit. He's not about to submit to any detailed scans."

"Does he even have to know?" the captain mused. "What if we simply said it was a routine adjustment to the scanning equipment? A recalibration?"

Even to his own ears, it sounded desperate. Stupid. He was not at all surprised to see Dax shake her head.

"Without Julian guessing in an instant what we're really up to?" she said. "Not a chance. It's his sickbay, remember? I'm sure he already knows it inside out, top to bottom…"

"I got it," Sisko interrupted curtly. "Then what _can _we do?"

"I think our best bet is still with that thing we found at Quark's. The more we find out, the more we can do about it."

"Very well." It was not what he'd been wanting to hear, and he was certain that his feelings of distaste showed in his voice.

Dax was hesitating, frowning to herself and chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip. Sisko waited.

"There's something else you might want to consider." When she finally continued, Jadzia's voice was even more tight and hushed. "Julian's an intelligent man, Benjamin. And he's determined. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that much. Have you given any thought to how we might keep him from running off again?"


	34. Chapter 34

"So let me see if I'm hearing this correctly." Doctor Bashir's gaze was tight and narrow. He paused, glancing warily from the captain to the Security Chief and back again.

Odo watched beside the entrance to the holding cell, taking some care to keep his own face neutral. But the doctor's was touched by a cold, suspicious frown. "You're asking _me _to help you track O'Brien."

Not "Miles", Odo noted uneasily. Not even "the Chief". And he had seen that same expression on too many faces already not to recognise exactly what it meant. The man before him was more like a caged animal than the cocky young doctor that Odo had come to know - and perhaps even reluctantly appreciate. His was the look of rebels, madmen, dangerous fanatics, and a significant number of the most volatile prisoners he could ever recall in all his years' service as Chief of Security. But few of these had left him as shaken as the simmering glare behind the eyes of Doctor Bashir.

"How about this?" Bashir suggested, somewhat coldly. "You let me fly away from here, and I'll find him all by myself. Save you the trouble."

"No," replied the captain, and snatched his opportunity to continue, well before any of his present company could object. "You come with us, or not at all. That's the choice."

"As what? Your prisoner?"

_He's sick_, Odo reminded himself. _Something's gone wrong. He's not thinking straight_.

Even at the best of times, the doctor could be a source of great frustration. But this was so much more than his usual irritating nature. There was something clearly disturbing in the intensity of his sudden, cagey mistrust - but nothing that Odo could identify with any ease. Much as he tried, he could not bring himself to agree with the strategy Dax had proposed. But he had orders from his captain, a man whose orders he had grudgingly come to respect, and he knew beyond any doubt what his own role had to be.

Stepping back, the Constable gestured again to the holding cell.

"No." Bashir set his feet to the width of his shoulders, and folded both arms in a display of quiet defiance.

Captain Sisko regarded him with a cold, stern glare. "This is not a prison sentence, Doctor. For now. But I strongly recommend that you co-operate."

"Really?" Bashir's eyes narrowed. "It certainly looks like a prison sentence to me."

In the reply that followed, Odo was sure that he'd detected something forced in Sisko's veneer of deliberate cordiality. "Consider this," the captain said in a deep, slow voice. "Wouldn't you rather have the best possible chance of finding… whatever it is you're looking for?"

Cautiously, the younger man nodded.

"Then, Doctor," the captain went on. "Certainly you would stand a far better chance with the Defiant on your side. Think about it. You know that I'm right."

Watching from his place directly behind both men, Odo thought he saw every moment of the internal debate as it passed across the young doctor's eyes. Bashir hesitated. His troubled frown deepened slightly.

"You… want… to help?"

"As long as you still know the way," said the captain with clearly false congeniality. "Do you?"

"Yes…"

"Then you'll have to trust us," he responded. "It _will _be in your best interest to co-operate. And if you do, I'm sure there's a way that we can help you in return."

* * *

The first thing for O'Brien to make sure of was that the lights, basic life support, propulsion, and shields were all functioning to some degree of satisfaction. For the moment at least, he could breathe. He could see. And everything seemed to be capable of operating.

Miles shuddered uneasily, still not at all sure of what could have caused him to doubt it. The next task he assigned himself was to go over every visible inch of the runabout's interior, searching for any sign of a faulty illusion, some dream about to reveal itself as false.

He did not discover anything that differed from the norm. But then, what in the world could he have been expecting? There was nothing to catch his attention - no deviation in materials, configuration, power output, or even in the subtle pulse of energy beneath O'Brien's feet. And yet, he still failed to recognise it as any vessel he knew from Deep Space Nine.

It took little more thought to remind him of an ancient mariners' superstition. A ship without a name was destined for bad fortune. The middle aged engineer shuddered quietly as though from the touch of ghosts along his back. He had never considered himself a particularly irrational or superstitious man, preferring the greater solidity of a broken circuit board or even a Cardassian interface. Enough of his life was already uncertain without giving in to such gullible vexations. Even so, this recollection was doing little to ease his nerves.

He hesitated, adjusting the strap of his shoulder bag although it was already well secured across his chest. Some degree of residual trepidation remained, but he eased himself into the pilot's seat and ran his gaze across the well-defined pastel lights upon the console. With a deep, steadying breath, he rested both cautious hands upon its surface.

"Right," he muttered under his breath. "Looks like it's now or never. Computer?"

He was surprised to find himself startled by the sharp, clear tone, and hesitated before releasing a tiny cough to jump-start his voice again. His next words were soft and reluctant. "Display… er… display… Computer, where are we?"

"_Currently ascending at an altitude of fifty thousand, two hundred and thirty two metres_."

"What?"

"_Currently ascending at an altitude of fifty_…"

"All right - I heard you the first time." To his relief, the computer was abruptly silenced. O'Brien pressed his lips together, quietly thoughtful, and looked up. "Show me."

He realised only after the display appeared that he had half expected it not to. _Still looking for the half-baked illusion, O'Brien_?

Something was very different about the impatience that he felt in the very centre of his chest. Something more urgent than he'd experienced since his journey had begun, like the anticipation of an exhausted runner when the end was finally in sight. That place, right there - that was where he had to be. But even at maximum warp, there was no way he could ever reach it quickly enough.

His hands moved automatically, tracing a path across the controls, but he paid scant attention to the numbers he was inputting. He heard a voice - his own - as though from somewhere far away, instructing the computer to lay in a course. All he knew for certain was that his actions still felt somehow right. He would never be satisfied with any other outcome, and whatever the end was likely to be, this was the heading to take him there.


	35. Chapter 35

"Commander." The ensign on helm duty turned at her station to look directly at Dax. "You asked to be notified when our survey was complete."

_I did_, Dax thought. She had asked for one more planet-wide scan, this time also focusing on the air directly above in case they might get an indication of something in orbit. She nodded. "Thank you, Ensign."

The young woman did not wait to be asked. "We didn't find anything, Sir."

Jadzia sighed, but kept her disappointment to herself. It was not so far from what she'd been expecting. "Thank you," she said again.

A door opened onto the sparsely populated bridge. Seeing the captain enter, with Kira following close at his heels, Jadzia quickly yielded the central chair to her commanding officer. But Sisko did not sit upon it.

"Anything?"

"If you mean have we found any signs of life," Dax responded. "I'm afraid not. But it was a long shot to begin with. I don't know how he managed it, but I'm fairly convinced that Chief O'Brien has already left this system behind."

"Has he?"

She nodded. "According to our sensors, anyhow. _And _according to Julian. Or so Odo tells me."

"But…" Kira sounded impatient. "I still don't understand why Julian would know…"

Dax worked hard to instill some confidence into her answer. More than anything, she hated having to confess to any lack of useful information. But if there was one thing she was learning from this journey, it was just how painful it could be, to accustom oneself to knowing as little as she did.

"I couldn't exactly say," she told both Sisko and the major. "It might have something to do with the telepathic catalyst that started this whole business in the first place. It's possible that whatever link it established is providing information as well as instructions. But at the moment all I can give is speculation."

Besides, she added secretly. Her own instincts already told her that whatever intelligence they'd gathered from Bashir, his was far more than a simple random guess.

"There was another matter I was meaning to discuss with you," Dax told Benjamin, and wished that she had been more easily able to banish the reluctance from her voice. When she paused, attempting to swallow, she discovered that her throat was dry. She felt the stares of their wide brown eyes every bit as much as she saw them, and sensed a question already forming on the face of her captain.

"I've taken the liberty of studying our mystery device a little more," the commander began. "And I think there may be some way to counteract the effect. Since it was an EM pulse that established this link in the first place, it might just be possible to reverse the polarity - we could use a second, stronger pulse to disrupt its telepathic influence."

"But how would we even know that it's safe?" protested Kira. "Didn't you say it was alien technology?"

"That's true," Jadzia conceded. "I did. It would be an easier job with O'Brien here, or even Tobin, but I'm fairly sure that I can work something out. Although…"

"Although?" echoed Ben Sisko. The ghost of his deep voice lingered in the stillness that followed.

Dax had seen that slightly incredulous, guarded expression on the captain's face too many times before. It was the look he carried when he knew she was preparing to tell him some less than savoury news. Something he would almost certainly not be happy to hear.

_Whatever it is you're going to say_, his eyes spoke to her. _Say it quickly_.

"I don't recommend that we make any immediate attempt at a cure." The reply came more slowly than Dax had intended, as if her mouth was unsure of how to form the right words. Disbelieving stares from all around her were exactly what she'd expected. She had discussed all possible options with Odo less than a minute before her return to the bridge, and knew that hers would be an unpopular suggestion. She had to force her way past an overwhelming urge to abandon it, even now.

With a deep breath, she continued. "Believe me - I wouldn't be advising this lightly…"

"I do believe you." Sisko was frowning. "But that doesn't stop me from wondering why."

"Wherever Miles and Julian were going," was Jadzia's explanation. "They were going together. Call it a simple hunch. But I think that if we rush into any premature attempts, we might just lose our only means to find the Chief."

* * *

_Time_, thought O'Brien, tapping his fingers impatiently on the console, his mood not at all improved by the constant internal repetition of some barely half remembered song. Somehow, so many of life's greatest frustrations always came back to one thing. Time.

Life either provided too much of it, which left a man to feel the crawling passage of every second as painfully as sand trapped beneath his skin. Or there was not enough, which made for an entirely new set of complications. In either case, it was rare to find that elusive balance that Miles himself would have preferred to have at least had as an option.

The runabout continued along the same preset course that he'd programmed into its navigational systems. That had been over an hour ago, and with little else to do but sit back like a piece of old luggage, Miles' restless impatience was punctuated at intervals by a renewed attempt to discover why he still felt so definitively out of place.

_There can't be that much further to go_, he despaired. _Can there_?

He shut his eyes with a soft, long sigh, and took another sip of his coffee. That _had _been rather unusual, he recalled himself thinking. Replicators on Federation vessels were marginally superior - and many times more manageable - than the ones installed by the Cardassians on what had once been Terok Nor. But even then, something was always slightly off - possibly even a little bland - about the coffee they produced.

The strong Jamaican blend he held in his hands was as sweet and powerful as the first cup he had ever tasted, the same that had first caused him to fall in love with that particular blend. A potent aroma that went straight to his nostrils reminded him of sparkling orange sunsets, set against the shadows of palm trees, and with a touch of spices drifting through the air. Not at all what he'd come to expect a replicated beverage to be.

His contemplation was cut short by a persistent tone at his left. A forward tactical display showed a misshapen form spread like a stain across his monitor. Eyes narrowed, O'Brien turned slowly towards it. "Computer," he said, and paused to consider what he'd been wanting to ask. "Display outside view. On screen."

The sensors had detected a large, dense cloud, which faced him in the darkness like the eye of a giant flower. It was a solid, complex form, layered in ruffled circles with graded hues of red, yellow, and orange gleaming like the colours of a warm Autumn sunset.

"Wow…" O'Brien was unable to stop a long, awestruck sigh. But no single word was adequate enough to describe the delicately intricate shapes before him, drawing him in, tugging him forward like a fish on a line.

But before he could study it in detail, his attention was abruptly snatched away by the high-pitched hum of a materialising object behind him. Setting aside his half empty mug of coffee, he frowned at the floor by the very back of the runabout's cockpit. Something was taking shape in exactly that place, matter as insubstantial as air and photons whirling, spinning, and pressing together into steadily graded shapes of solid matte-grey.

The Chief's mind was working doubly hard as he approached the unknown object, still with no more than a passing resemblance to any mechanical device he knew. It was flat and cylindrical, with a series of tiny nicks spaced regularly around its edges. He could not identify it as anything of Federation origin, or Cardassian, or from any Gamma Quadrant civilisation he'd come across in all his years as a Starfleet engineer.

Lights flashed across its surface as Miles crouched low to scoop it up in both his open palms. A shudder passed along his nerves, so tremendously powerful that he was close to losing his grip on the hand-sized machine he now held.

"What in the…?" He stared, listening to the tense, uneasy whisper that failed to loosen the ache now invading the deepest muscles of his back.

Still as tense as a coiled spring, he lifted the object for closer inspection. _Just put it down_, he urged himself. _Put it down, and back away. Pretend that you never saw it in the first place_.

But the lights held his gaze like a smoothly dancing snake: Hypnotic, brightly coloured, and dangerously attractive. They flooded O'Brien's visual field until his eyes sent stabbing pains into his head, and his ears started to ache from a constant ringing drone. He could feel the illusory warmth of every light that passed across his face. They continued to pulse more steadily with each second until they reached a perfect unison, flashing together as if to match the exaggerated beating of Miles O'Brien's own heart.

He gasped at the slick, uneasy warmth now spreading upwards through his arms, causing them to tingle like pins and needles from the elbows down. His face was numb, vision dimming from the colourless waves of texture before his eyes, and tiny jolts of static passed intermittently into the very centre of his brain. He was dizzy, robbed of even the sense of his own body, trapped by some invisible barrier, unyielding and pervasive - like an extreme slow-motion transporter effect.

_Is that what this is_? _Some kind of long range transport beacon_?

Thinking was difficult, connecting those thoughts to words almost impossibly so. O'Brien felt the first clear touch of panic. His heart raced with accumulating speed, breath coming only with difficulty. The little he could sense of his own skin suggested that it was clammy with cold sweat.

Already feeling light-headed and queasy as the light closed inwards from the edges, Miles was aware of a sharp and distant cry. Perhaps it was his own, but he had no chance to know for certain. The world folded around him, and just as suddenly he was no longer aware of anything beyond the flashing, multicoloured glow.


	36. Chapter 36

Centuries had passed since the introduction of faster than light travel, giving many worlds the means to journey the vast distances from one star to the next in a fraction of the time it might otherwise have taken. But even in this age of high technology, there was little to suggest that any of life's most basic necessities had ever really changed. As much as any crew in the galaxy, those who served on board the USS Defiant were every bit as biologically tuned to the steady, predictable rhythm of a planet-bound existence.

Even the very earliest space-faring pioneers had been quick to discover that a scheduled "night time" was essential for the comfort of starship operations everywhere. Every crew member, even those rostered to work through the later shifts, seemed to understand - and occasionally came to appreciate - this most basic of considerations.

That in itself was cause enough to dim all extraneous lights to less than half their usual intensity. But there were times - especially in the depths of night - when the Defiant was riddled with places so dark that diurnal humanoids were hesitant to step. Even those large-eyed, thickly furred creatures scampering around the forest canopies from dusk until dawn would have had to strain to see beyond a few short metres.

Jadzia Dax could not have found a reason for the way she was feeling that night, even if there had been anyone around to demand one of her. But the passage of time had left her still more restless and agitated, and a request to the ship's onboard chronometer confirmed for her that an apparent eternity had in reality been little more than an hour and a half.

Her cabin on the Defiant was claustrophobically silent, the artificial air heavy and stifling. There was little to do but to lie awake in semi-darkness, staring at the underside of the bunk above her. Every breath was stale in her lungs. She was irritable, goosebumps rising all over her skin - and, if she was honest, more than a little worried about her friends.

Still trapped by the silence, chasing that peace which continued to elude her, Dax twisted from the mattress and rose just as quickly to her feet. A long groan from the depths of her chest was dimmed to no more than a coarse half whisper, as though from concern that somebody might be woken by the sound. Jadzia paused, grateful that it had not drawn anyone from their attempt at sleep - no-one, that was, save for herself.

She staggered across the floor on unsteady legs, grimaced quietly, and slipped away through the swiftly sliding door.

None of Dax's hosts had ever been cursed with particularly poor eyesight, even as their hair turned grey with the years, and finally faded to white - and their skin wore away and creased like overheated paper. Jadzia's eyes were even sharper than many of her predecessors'. But even she moved cautiously through the more obscure corridors, pausing to accustom herself to the darkness and raising her right hand to brush against the nearest wall.

She followed it carefully, keeping close to the passage's edge. At least the tactile contact lent her steps a surer direction. But she was still a little slower than she felt she ought to have been, hesitant and cautious as she made her way in silence towards the Defiant's brig.

The officer on guard did not object as she passed him by and nodded briefly in his direction. She had little idea of what impulse had led her to this part of the ship. But for now, it was an important place for her to be. She paused at the entrance, and with a slow outward breath, steeled herself to approach the security forcefield.

"Have you come to let me go?" A precisely steady voice drifted closer from the darkness of the holding cell. Light from an unidentified source flashed briefly across Julian's eyes, finally allowing Jadzia to pinpoint the doctor's location.

He was crouched atop a hard, narrow bench at the farthest corner of the cubicle. A shadow even against the black, Julian had crossed both legs in front of him and brought them up to press against his chest. And the lighter form of the bench was also coming into view as the Trill's eyes found the time they needed to adjust. There was an identical piece of furniture in every cell, each with a thin, uncomfortable mattress that was intended to double as a serviceable bed. Even without the constant, still unidentified distraction pulling sharply on the mind of her companion, Dax could not help but doubt that anyone would be able to sleep on something so painful.

Bashir still watched her, half glaring in the dim, reflected light, his gaze as coldly intense as that of a panther in a cage. Jadzia had known for many years that the doctor's night vision was easily acute enough to match her own. And she realised with equal certainty that he wasn't about to allow her from his sight.

Sighing with a measure of subdued regret, she shook her head. She did not doubt that he must have noticed her quietly melancholy smile. "Sorry, Julian. Not this time."

"Then go away."

Pain twisted reflexively at the core of Dax's gut - sharp and tearing, acute enough to make her wince. But even now, from those same depths came a cold, pure certainty. This may not have been her prison that night. She may not have been the one physically trapped between those hard, confining walls. But Dax was now as sure as she'd ever been, of anything. At that moment, there was no possible way for her to leave the cells behind.

So she stayed, and fretted in silence, just as she'd done all through the long and sleepless night. The same uneasy feeling still crept beneath her skin, causing it to itch uncomfortably even as she fought against the urge to tug at the collar of her uniform jersey.

_How could you_? the darkened walls demanded of her. _How could you have made your friends suffer like this_? _And what will you do, Jadzia_? _What will you do, if all your good intentions turn bad_?

She'd taken such meticulous care to explain her apparent solution. It had been so essential to get everything right, after all, to leave no possible room for misinterpretation. Benjamin, and everyone else around him, had been so willing to pursue that course on _her _recommendation. There had been initial resistance, certainly. But the bottom line was, they trusted her.

Still, there was no way to push away her most tenacious doubts - nor to stop the simmering anxiety deep within her belly. Whatever had caused this, it was already getting so much worse.

As she came a little closer, Dax's sharp eyes were still detecting movement. She noted with some alarm that her friend inside had begun to shake like a leaf in the wind. He tensed at her approach, drawing his legs up even tighter.

"Julian…" she began, but with little idea of what she would have said.

_It would be so simple_, she thought, a sudden blunt ache rising in her throat. _So quick, and then he would be cured. But not this, Jadzia. This is just cruel_.

_But… if I do… then what about the Chief_?

Miles O'Brien's was not the face she could see before her eyes. He was not the one glaring her way, tight-muscled and trembling with barely containable agitation. _They both need your help_, Jadzia reminded herself. With luck, and patience, she would be in a far better position to be reunited with _both _of her friends.

She offered Bashir her best approximation of a reassuring smile. "Good night, Julian."

But she did not return to her quarters that night. Instead she stopped after barely two metres. Making certain that she was out of the doctor's sight, she settled into a tight crouch, crossed her legs, and remained in place with her back against the wall. She supposed that if the captain should catch her here - or Odo, or Kira - they would most likely have something to say about her presence this near to the holding cells.

Even so, until the start of her early morning shift, she would stay close by. Already she was struck by the unshakable notion that in this very room, many more times than her quarters on the Defiant - this was the place where she truly belonged.


	37. Chapter 37

O'Brien gasped from a heady mix of fear and elation, briefly disoriented by the after-effect of the unanticipated transport. Sensing himself solidify far more gradually than was usual for a beam-down, he bent low, and forced a series of deep, steadying breaths. A sudden wave of dizziness passed briefly through his head, and he overbalanced, staggering against the nearest solid surface.

_At least that's something_, he thought, grunting softly. _Good to find there's something solid round this place_. It took him several more gasps of the local air before he was steady and confident enough to risk letting go.

Wherever he'd found himself, the atmosphere was thin. There was not as much oxygen as he was normally accustomed to, but neither did it carry any sign of toxicity. _Difficult_, O'Brien noted. _But manageable_. He would still have to take care. He stepped away, finally allowing himself a moment to re-establish his bearings.

It was another cave, broader than those he'd encountered at the Whirlpool, and easily twice as high as the double-storey Promenade of Deep Space Nine. An eerie, swamp-green glow was creeping shallowly over every wall. By this illumination, Miles supposed that it must have been entirely formed from smooth, hard limestone. So, if that were true, then there had to have been water somewhere nearby.

He was glad for this thought. The transport from the runabout had certainly left him thirsty, every bit as much as he was tired.

Pausing to rest a hand against the nearest sloping wall, Miles O'Brien tilted his head and peered all the way to the top of the cave. He sighed with quiet disappointment. Stone blades hung in tendrils from a high, curved ceiling. But he could not find any sign of liquid water, which might otherwise have indicated a shallow pool on the rock face somewhere just beyond his sight.

Something was there. In the distant shadows, a chorus of screams sounded long and shrill, loud enough to hurt his ears. O'Brien flinched away from the multitude of cries, but there was no unexpected attack. No swarm of tiny, sharp-toothed creatures surging downwards from the blackened spaces. _It's just some sort of mating cry_, he hastened to reassure himself, but continued to startle at even the faintest echoes. _Calling to each other. Nothing to do with you_.

But with this feeble attempt to believe his own thoughts, he could not imagine that any creature would find those shrieks attractive.

* * *

A quietly surreptitious smile passed fleetingly across Eiyon's face as he glanced around the now unguarded corridor. After so much time, so much patience, the moment for action had finally arrived.

It had been so disappointingly easy to ambush the cocoa-skinned Security officer in the midst of his apparent vigil, even easier to overpower that same officer with a loaded hypospray pressed against his throat, until he collapsed to the floor at the entrance to the brig.

Federation Security assumed that its men were alert and watchful. And this one could not have been an exception. Alert, perhaps, but not enough. A lapse in concentration had quickly become an opportunity as, keeping to the lieutenant's blind spot, Eiyon had crept soundlessly closer. The man had dropped with minimum effort on his attacker's part, as susceptible to the artificial gravity as a bulging, weighted sack.

The only thing Eiyon regretted was that the attack itself had not proven to be more of a challenge. Catching the man so that he made no noise, and dragging the moderately hefty, rotund body away from any potential lines of sight was marginally difficult by comparison - but still not quite as satisfying as he'd imagined it would be. No others had emerged from hidden corners. None came to disturb him in the execution of his duty to the Founders, causing him to wonder if there were likely to be any real obstacles to this mission at all.

Had any of Starfleet even seen him leave the confinement of his quarters? There had been no evidence before now that he had been noticed. Which was precisely why the Vorta had permitted himself that chance to smile.

Before long, the muscles of his face had shifted again, returning to its previous mask of false cordiality. Saying nothing, he turned away from where he'd hidden the now unconscious guard and took three deliberate steps towards the nearest holding cell. The tall, young-faced human watched him from within, staring through narrowed eyes, noting every slight movement of his visitor's approach. The light from above highlighted his features to exaggerate the unyielding caution in his eyes.

Eiyon transformed his own expression into something far more subtle. A practised, hypnotic stare issued forth from behind the ice-blue of his eyes, intended particularly to ease the suspicions of wary aliens. His thin, pastry-white face maintained its cool neutrality.

A good first impression was most important in his line of work, after all. And at that moment, it was essential to ingratiate himself to the human shut inside that narrow cell. This one was a doctor, Eiyon had discovered. A healer of the sick. He would not react well if he should see what had happened to the gold-suited Security officer. And even if they did manage to avoid the place where the Vorta had been obliged to hide the injured man, gaining the prisoner's trust would still be the most difficult part of the mission.

Almost every Alpha Quadrant species had been given too much time already to develop unfair prejudices _against _the Dominion. _First impressions again_. If their initial contact had been his to control, he would have played a far more subtle game, tried to establish good relations from the very beginning. Friends were so much easier to defeat than enemies.

But the Founders had clearly made their choices, and these were not for him to question. At that moment, his own task was to work especially hard on this man.

"Good morning," he began. The human responded mutely with a wary, sidelong frown, and backed away to the farthest corner of the holding cell, recoiling until he had gained as much distance as he could between himself and his diminutive visitor.

But Eiyon was scarcely inexperienced in the delicate art of interspecies relations. More than one of his clones had spent a lifetime perfecting his skills in service to the Founders. He had made his mistakes, come to learn from them, and occasionally even died from them. Indeed, suspicion was an obstacle he had long since come to expect. It would have been foolish to allow this one's attitude to discourage him.

Contact with nervous aliens always ended in one of two ways. Either those he encountered accepted the Dominion's superior claim, or they were summarily destroyed. These Alpha Quadrant aliens were little different, this human no less insignificant than any other. Eiyon was not worried.

"I will not harm you." As if to confirm the truth of his promise, the Vorta stepped forward. He chose not to notice the prisoner's involuntary flinch. Reaching for a panel directly beside the door, he entered the complicated sequence that he'd taken care to memorise when the Founders first sent him on this unusual mission. The forcefield separating them flickered once, and vanished in a burst of speckled orange.

"You see?" Eiyon's smile was unmistakeable. His voice grew still more deliberately smooth as he stepped aside, just far enough to allow the reluctant lieutenant an easy passage through. "I want the same thing you do. Nothing more than a chance to reach your goal."

* * *

Dax scowled quietly before opening her eyes, and yawned, wondering exactly when and how she had found the chance to doze off. The same frown lingered, longer than she wished it to. There was an ache across her shoulders, stabbing like a blunted knife, even stronger along the back of her legs where her tendons had stiffened with the passing of the night. A reminder - she had not chosen the best position in which to have fallen asleep.

But if she had missed the beginning of her shift, she was certain that somebody would have contacted her by now and demanded a response. Besides, she added, groaning as she rubbed away the tension in her neck, who could possibly have overslept in such an uncomfortable position? It was unlikely that she had been there for more than two or three hours, and doubtful that she had even slept for twenty minutes of that time.

Muscles creaking irritably, Jadzia pushed herself first to her knees, and finally stumbled onto her feet. A brief tide of pins and needles passed her by, numbing her legs until they had accustomed themselves to the sudden rush of blood. She noticed that the lights were back on full. _Early morning_, she thought, and hoped that Julian had managed to find some rest as well - however brief it might have been. Even better if she should approach the holding cell and find him still asleep.

She skirted, still quietly hopeful, around the corner dividing her position from Bashir's. She would be back on duty before too long, but not without first checking on her friend. But then, she stopped with a sharp and sudden gasp, and the absolute certainty that her heart had skipped a beat.

Dropping swiftly to the floor, she reached forward and pressed two fingers to the neck of the Security lieutenant she'd discovered lying at her feet. _Drugged_, she guessed. _But not in any danger_. Still, she released a curse through her teeth as she finally leapt upright and raced towards the cell.

Hot alarm rising unstoppably to her face, head filling with a string of the most fearsome Klingon phrases that Curzon had picked up in all his years of contact, she slapped her combadge. "Dax to Security."

Julian was gone.


	38. Chapter 38

Chief O'Brien paused, slowing his forward progress to a momentary halt. He rubbed his head, still a little dizzy, and frowned through narrowed eyes. Even before he spoke, there was no doubt that his voice would match the incredulity in his expression.

"Nor-an?"

The pale Seron youth was seated on a distant rock, but rose to his feet at the sound of O'Brien's voice. He watched steadily, silently, and never moving in the dim light of the cave. The older man noted again how thin and elongated Nor-an seemed to be - not particularly small, but not at all discomfited by the low, protruding rock now only centimetres from his head.

"What are you…?" O'Brien began. He stopped after no more than two steps forward.

Something else was revealed behind this adolescent's eyes. Cold, distant… An instant later, O'Brien felt the pain of muscles clenching beneath the skin of his hands. "You're not Nor-an," he whispered under his breath.

A cold shudder passed along the underside of his skin. These words, if they had even been heard, elicited no response. Stepping away with uncanny ease, the youth looked behind him to ensure that his only companion was still watching, and spoke.

It was only two words, but enough to send a fresh icy chill through the other man's blood. "This way."

"Now wait just one… _What_?"

"This way. You are close, O'Brien. Very close."

The image turned until his back was to the human engineer. "Wait a moment," O'Brien shouted. "I know Nor-an never left Seron Mu. I know you can't be him. But whoever you are, I've had enough of your strange little games. Isn't it about time to give us some answers? Who are you, really? And what the Hell is going on around here?"

Striding forward, he reached out to grab this escort by the forearm, and wheeled him around. A noticeably transformed face looked back at him, and grinned. "Chief!"

This section of the cave was too poorly lit for Miles to see with any great ease. He had to strain to discern the details of a face, and colours were equally ill defined in the sickly green and blue-grey of the cave. He blinked, frowning, and giddy with confusion. "Julian?"

How could he possibly have mistaken the doctor for Nor-an? The Seron youth was thin like Bashir. But he was considerably shorter, and pale as cream. Of course, the cave would have done much to obscure his friend's darker hue. But to transform his voice as well? No drop in lighting could be responsible for that.

"What are _you _doing here?" O'Brien demanded loudly.

"Does it matter?" The apparition beckoned with a single broad sweep of his arm. "We're almost there. Come on."

* * *

_Now, that's strange_, thought Bashir, noting that his Vorta guide was skirting purposely around the section of the corridor which would have provided them with the most direct route. Slowing to a near stop, he opened his mouth to protest, but glanced behind him with a rising, heated flood of uncertainty. It was a compelling idea, to turn back, retrace his steps, and find out what this small, pale man had been so determined to avoid.

But even now, something continued to pull him in the opposite direction - that invisible tether keeping him barely two paces behind the retreating stranger. And now those same distant azure eyes were once more staring his way.

"It isn't far, Doctor, but we must move quickly."

Julian shifted instinctively back at the sight of the Vorta's piercing blue eyes. "Why… would _you_…?" He sensed his own face twist with indecision, and a low, worried moan now trapped behind his throat. And why, by every god of every race of all four Quadrants of the galaxy, should he ever feel any wish to follow this man?

_Because he can lead you to your freedom. He can help you get to where you have to be_.

…_Which is where_?

It was a powerfully attractive offer that he had been given, and he still felt the same irresistible pull. Both ends of the corridor beckoned with equal appeal. But then, he had no more idea - now than before - of where his desires were leading him.

"Everything you want is right this way," came the voice of his companion, and Julian was increasingly aware of yet another emerging question. Since when had there been a _Vorta _on the USS Defiant?

It was scarcely a revelation that a servant of the Dominion knew his way around the Federation's small but powerful craft. Nor was there any surprise at the ease with which this man negotiated the complex network of corridors. The Vorta's gleaming black hair was a beacon, guiding Bashir along some predetermined course, which he followed with a quiet, perturbed frown. "We're…" he began, hesitantly. "We're heading for the shuttle bay. Aren't we?"

Words snagged in his throat, and emerged far more quietly than he had wished them to. But the Vorta continued, neither turning to look behind him nor offering any hint of a reply. Even for the early hour, the way before them was unusually deserted. It was strange enough that the Dominion should have involved itself at all. But even stranger, that their representative did not so much as glance behind him - as if he was certain that the doctor had no way to stop himself from following.

_It's so empty_, thought Bashir. _Like walking through an old ghost ship_…

He continued to gaze around him, and occasionally over his shoulder, wondering that they had not so far encountered any resistance. And why weren't they making for the nearest Jeffries' tube? They could not be this lucky for very much longer. But despite the strain of constant motion - and the subtle hum beneath the deck plates - there was no further sign of interruptions. Little to punctuate their progress, save for the same repeated panels of dull pastel brown.

The doors to the shuttle bay opened easily, allowing Julian and the Vorta to step together through the entrance. Bashir opened his mouth again, but found himself with nothing to say. He peered nervously at the low roof and far away walls - as well as the stationary runabout inside. The Vorta stranger approached the slumbering vessel, and turned around. "Your access codes are valid, are they not?"

The human stopped, muscles tense enough to ache, unable to take a single step beyond the room's edge. He was the Defiant's Chief Medical Officer. Of course his codes were valid. But there was still the question of…

"Why are you here?"

The Vorta cocked his head, eyes narrowed, lips curled into a derisive sneer. "What?"

Julian fought against an urge to escape into the corridor at his rear. "Nothing. I just… I can't understand why you'd want to help me."

"What makes you think that you're the one I'm helping?"

With a sudden prickling sensation in his throat - as though from the drying effects of hot sand - Julian stepped away until his back was pressed against the wall. His mouth was arid, heart thundering. But there was something else in his thoughts now - a rising spectre taking on a shape it had not possessed before.

"We're not going anywhere," he whispered, with none of the disappointment he might have expected to feel. "They knew."

"What do you mean?"

Bashir smiled wickedly, sensing the gleam of subversion reveal itself behind his eyes.

The Vorta's own expression was transformed to one of pure, cold fury. He surged towards the human doctor, one hand raised to clamp mercilessly around his throat. "What do you _mean_, they knew?"

Julian grappled desperately with the other man, struggling to push his arm away enough for him to take a breath.

"They've been avoiding us deliberately," his companion said a moment later. Realisation spread slowly across the breadth of his pale face, and his voice turned to a tight-edged whisper. "Haven't they, your Federation friends?"

He stared sharply into Julian's eyes. But gradually, his grip upon the taller man's neck was loosened. He stepped back, glancing around. "And _that _means…"

Several panels burst open around them, with a combined crash so loud that the sound reverberated painfully at the back of Julian's ears. Confronted with a circle of phasers now pointed their way, his thoughts automatically filled in the remainder of the Vorta's half complete sentence. _That means they've been tracking us all along_.

He recognised the occasional face among them - Odo's deputies, one or two bridge officers, and then the intense blue eyes of Jadzia Dax. Finally, a honey-gold rippling effect as familiar to him as the surface of his own hands congealed into the straight backed form of the Constable.

"Let me guess, Eiyon," the changeling growled. "You've been planning to take our shuttle for an unscheduled jaunt?"

He shifted his gaze to Bashir, who backed away and startled as another Security officer appeared from behind the door. Heart racing, the doctor glanced desperately at all their faces, and finally at Dax. She stepped forward as if to claim him, and extended a hand. "Julian…"

But Odo's attention was directed firmly at their Vorta companion. "Do I even want to know what you thought you were doing?"

Eiyon smiled.

"I serve the Founders," he told them simply, as if this was the only explanation they would ever require.

Odo harrumphed. "Yes. I expect you do."

Briefly ignoring the changeling Security officer, Eiyon glared once more at Bashir. "I don't think you fully appreciate what an opportunity I was offering you," he said. "You could have been far away, many times safer than the Alpha Quadrant is about to become. But if you want to stay and face your doom, along with all your Federation friends, then the decision is yours. I doubt it will make much difference either way."

"We'll see about that," growled Odo. The Vorta turned conscientiously towards him.

"I do not doubt it."

Before any of the gathered officers had a chance to react, or even to anticipate the movement of his hand, Eiyon brought one arm swiftly across to slap the back of his opposite wrist. His pallid, sculpted sneer was last to be obscured by the stream of dancing lights as they carried him away.


	39. Chapter 39

"I'm preparing to lower the forcefield." As he watched stiffly from the outer edge of the brig, Odo's steady, rumbling cadence slowed to something even more deliberate than usual. Peering carefully through the invisible barrier, he spoke with a level tone intended especially to avoid exciting an already agitated prisoner - and continued after a pause. "When I do, are you likely to attempt anything rash?"

A sound reached him from the other side. A laugh, bearing a closer resemblance to a low bark than a human voice. Odo watched the doctor turn his head to face him, and the shadows retreated from across his eyes.

"I'm curious, Constable." Bashir's response was clipped and hushed, every bit as controlled as the words of the changeling Security Chief. "Exactly what do you suppose that I would try?"

It had been difficult enough for Dax and Odo to convince the younger man to return to the point of his previous confinement. And neither had mentioned that their actions were for the doctor's own good. Perhaps the idea was already implicit. Perhaps. But it would hardly have made any difference for either one of them to say so.

Bad enough, Odo could not stop himself from thinking, that there was no way to pinpoint the Vorta's ultimate location. Bad enough that he had already been forced to report their failure to Captain Sisko. But the captain's concession of defeat had been even worse than if he'd allowed his disappointment to show.

"You're not to blame," Major Kira had assured the constable, later that day. "You managed to keep Julian here at least. That counts for something."

_Does it_? Odo asked himself. _Really_? Eiyon had _chosen _to depart alone. Try as he might, Odo couldn't believe that he had really stopped anything. And there would always be that other nagging question: _Why_?

Even the major was quick to give up in the face of her long-time colleague's refusal to be comforted. Now, the constable resolved, there was only one option left. He would watch the prisoner himself, and far more attentively than his deputies had done. One thing he knew - there would be no more room for second chances. No place at all for sentiment.

That was the worst part. He had imagined after everything they'd been through - even then - that their visitor could still have aided the Defiant's crew. He had longed to believe that the Founders were capable of at least that small token of generosity.

"To hope isn't a failing, Constable," Sisko had insisted just after Odo had given his report, in answer to the Chief of Security's expression of concern. "We all allowed ourselves that small degree of optimism, and no-one can blame you for hoping for the best, especially as it concerns your own people. I know you've always tempered your hopes with caution - and that's a good attitude to maintain. Remember, it was _Eiyon _who insisted on betraying _our _trust."

Bringing his attention back to the present, Odo chose to ignore the doctor's challenge. "We've reached the position you indicated," he informed the younger man.

Bashir was quick to rise to his feet. He crossed the distance that remained between them, to stand much closer to the forcefield and those outside. His expression was intense, hyper-focused - possibly even eager.

"You have?"

The constable's face remained unchanged, even as he noticed that Bashir was holding his breath. "Captain Sisko is assembling an away team," he told the doctor. "He requires your presence."

Nodding to one of his Starfleet deputies - who had been waiting only two and a half metres away - he worked the panel that would neutralise the only remaining barrier between himself and Doctor Bashir.

"I suppose this means you trust me now," the young man challenged him.

"We'll see," growled Odo. "Perhaps I will be more inclined to trust you once we have proceeded without incident to the bridge."

* * *

"Julian--" O'Brien demanded, struggling to keep up with the ceaseless pace of his friend's retreating image. "Where are we going?"

The figure before him continued along the rocky path, never answering, never even turning around. Miles shuddered. Quickening his pace, he reached forward and grabbed the doctor by one shoulder.

"Julian?"

O'Brien withdrew his hand - jerked back as though the very touch was hot enough to burn. A memory flashed briefly through his mind, so briefly that he wondered if he'd even seen anything at all. Of a moment of intense lemon-yellow touching the eyes of his friend.

But _was _this the same man? he wondered, with a shallow pain of anxiety behind his brow. Or was the whole adventure just one illusion after another?

What illusions? The runabout must have been real enough, or it could never have carried a man through the vastness of interstellar space. And it had already been a long time since he'd tested his surroundings for signs of energy traces - anything that might have indicated some kind of holographic projection.

Even now, the cavern floor was solid beneath his feet - easily solid enough to cause his footsteps to echo. But there was still something wrong about his tall, dark-clad, and far too familiar guide. Something had been odd about the cadence of his speech, as much as about his silence. Or perhaps the source of this unease had far more to do with the way he walked. The image's gait was too smooth, too fluid, and not quite enough like the man he thought he'd come to know.

O'Brien opened his mouth to speak, still endeavouring not to bump his legs against the scattered boulders. He imagined that whatever he said, his words would come as a demand for answers. But he was not afforded a chance to find out.

Laughter sounded from every direction, high and shrill, and all around him. Miles ducked low and clenched both hands, glancing around at the faraway walls. It took him scarcely a moment to remember the multiple discords of those mating cries from just minutes earlier.

But he saw no response from whatever apparition had adopted the appearance of his friend. "Didn't you _hear _that?" the chief demanded, unable to believe that anyone could have missed such a noise.

Still with no reaction to the unseen creatures or to his companion's persistent demands, Bashir - or whatever else he was - stopped, and turned around slowly to face the engineer. A wicked smile was forming across his face.

And he vanished.

"What the…?" gasped O'Brien. He stopped, just as suddenly tense and alarmed. But the visible space around him was once again as empty as it was now silent.


	40. Chapter 40

"Oh. Good." Jadzia turned her head at the moment she heard the bridge doors open. "You're here."

She beckoned for the pair to join her at the forward station. "Take a look at this."

"Where's Captain Sisko?" asked Odo as he led his current charge around the array of chairs and consoles.

"He's in Engineering," Dax responded lightly. "He and the major had something important to sort out, but they shouldn't be too long."

She glanced from Odo, to Julian, and finally back again. "Here - this is what I wanted you both to see."

The long, airless black of the galaxy was no longer in view. It was pushed to one side by a veil of textured sunset-orange, glowing brightly enough to obscure even the nearest stars. Swirls of thick-edged cloud made gigantic, quasi-solid forms like the sweep of a hand across loosely gathered clay.

Another curved structure was appearing at one corner of the screen - darker, more of a rusty maroon than the surrounding cloud behind it, but with a hazy edge of its own to suggest a dust-filled, turbulent atmosphere. Jadzia had identified it easily - a planet, perhaps a survivor from whatever force had created the display of colour before them. But aside from its location, there was nothing more unusual about this world than there had been about every other they'd encountered since leaving DS9.

"Some sort of nebula?" Julian commented, his voice hushed.

Jadzia saw Odo glance incredulously at the doctor, and figured that a more subtly arranged face would possibly have displayed an open frown. As it was, she was certain that she had noticed the changeling's eyes narrow.

"Are you saying you didn't know already?" The sarcastic overtone of the constable's voice was every bit as clear.

"Why would I?" Julian shook his head, and Odo tensed to see him step towards the screen and stare at the illuminated colours. "But this _is _the place, isn't it?"

"What makes you so sure?"

The doctor's response was almost too quiet for anyone around him to hear. "I can…" he whispered, and paused, stumbling briefly on his own reply. "I - I can _feel _it."

Even as Jadzia strained to hear her friend's softly spoken words, Julian was looking away, a frown of uncertainty etched across his brow. Jadzia was certain that she must have seen him shudder. Feeling suddenly uneasy - like a carnival spectator - she startled, and suppressed an urge to shake herself visibly from her fretful silence.

"Then it's true." Her focus returned deliberately to the multicoloured display. "Chief O'Brien's out there somewhere."

"Close." Hearing the sudden drop in Julian's voice, Dax turned back towards him. But the doctor's gaze remained just as fixed as before upon the view outside.

"But it's not the planet," he muttered, eyes narrowed in concentration. "It's…"

Moving his hand like a compass to its mark, he continued forward and pointed to a position on the screen. Dax frowned, unable to discover anything remarkable. But then she saw.

There was another, narrower celestial body - a compact, clearly barren rock - floating at some distant point above the planet's windswept surface. _Not quite a moon_… thought Dax, surprised that she had not noticed it earlier. _That's definitely some kind of satellite, I'd say. Perhaps the last in a system of rings. But it's far too small to be called a moon_.

_An asteroid, perhaps_. It was the way of the scientist, she supposed - this need to classify every little thing that came her way. But whatever the correct label, that was hardly what mattered. There was a far greater issue at hand. They had to do whatever they could to find O'Brien.

She looked down at her console, seeking more information. "Possible…" she mused. "I'm not detecting any atmosphere on the surface. But there's a network of caves less than twenty metres below. And these… _Do _have air."

_Fascinating_.

"More caves?" said Odo.

"Quite extensive caves," Jadzia confirmed, eyebrows raised. "It's hollower than a honeycomb down there. Cold too, I'll wager. And it won't be easy to transport through all that rock."

"We have to get down there."

Dax and the constable both turned towards Bashir, with as much surprise as if one of the consoles had spoken. But another voice cut in before either had a chance to reply. "We will."

Sisko had been first to enter, although Major Kira was not at all far behind. He tossed one of a pair of tawny brown packs to Jadzia, who caught it between both hands just like she would the captain's favourite baseball. Threading her arms through the narrow straps as she rose to her feet, Dax saw that Julian had opened his mouth and taken an inward breath in preparation to speak. But as he noticed Sisko's dark eyes shift towards him, the younger man withdrew - and looked away.

"I'm sure there's enough in here for all of us if we need it," Dax promised, reaching forward to touch his arm, and trying not to notice his startled reaction. She returned her attention to Benjamin.

"We've found a likely place to beam to," she said. "But it's not going to be easy. I'll have to take us pretty close to the surface if you want to get an away team all the way down."

"Then it's a good thing we just had the Engineering crew add some extra strength to our shields," Sisko commented, turning towards the same door through which he'd entered. "Let's go, Old Man. Ensign Murphy can take the helm."

He strode away, followed by Dax, Odo and Julian - with Kira bringing up the rear. _So, this is it_, Jadzia thought, promising herself as forcefully as she longed to be able to promise the others. Every step they took was another step closer to retrieving Chief O'Brien.

* * *

There was a soft, airy noise of fluttering wings - softer than the echo of a whisper - and a subtle breath of displaced atmosphere. Miles O'Brien swatted irritably at the side of one cheek, where he felt the after effect of something brushing against it, and scowled.

With every metre of progress through the cavern, his surroundings were ever more concealed behind a thickening wave of darkness. It was noticeably dimmer than it had been on his arrival, but not so much as to blind him to the pattern of shapes and textures all around him. All he had to do was strain his eyes until his vision cleared enough to see. Another being was there beside him, shifting through the eerie near blackness only inches from his right. He stopped, uncertainty rising like the swelling of the tide, and slowly turned towards it.

The cause of those shadows was barely half the size of his hand. It had flown by him to land on the jagged rock face, with leathery, membranous wings extended thinly from its fore to hind limbs. The creature's head turned to glance at the human behind it, studying his face with eyes like two beaded, gleaming black pearls. Its snout was shaped into the likeness of a beak - although far more blunted, noted Miles - and with a body not unlike something part way between a pterodactyl and one of those oddly-fashioned Bajoran bats.

Tiny claws gripped the rock as it climbed a little way over the limestone, before letting go and dropping like a deadweight to the ground.

"Uh--" gasped O'Brien, and almost tripped as he ducked to try and catch the falling creature before it should injure itself on the hard stone floor. But then, just as suddenly, it curved upwards with a flurry of wings and ascended to the lightless roof of the cave.

O'Brien dodged away from something thin and flexible that passed within a hair's breadth of his face. The creature's tail felt just slightly ethereal as it brushed fleetingly against the ends of his hair, and the return to whatever colony waited at the top of the cave was greeted with a fresh chorus of screams and wails. Dropping half way to a low crouch, the Chief covered his head with both hands, and ducked enough to give some imagined protection to his face.

Another shadow flew rapidly past him, with another long, semi-feathered appendage trailing from its rear. "Do you _mind_?" Miles protested loudly, unable to react quickly enough as yet another onslaught came this time from a pair of barely visible attackers.

A swarm of tiny creatures now gathered around his head, wings and tails swiftly giving way to sharp, pecking beaks - each one as unavoidable as grains of sand in a tornado.

_What the Hell_…?

He cried out again at the strength of two powerful arms as they grabbed him from behind and dragged him backward across the rocks. Snatching the scarce opportunity to catch a breath, he rubbed his shoulder and upper arm, and looked around.

"Cheers," he gasped. "Not to seem ungrateful, but couldn't you have…?"

A current of alarm surged all the way down from the top of his spine. Miles stopped, his mouth dry, throat aching like it was pierced through with hot metal. The eyes looking down at him gleamed solidly in the darkness, bright enough to cause his own to ache. They cut through the cavern air like two electric lamps. Round, constant, with knife-thin pupils set into a backdrop of clear, pure lemon-yellow.


	41. Chapter 41

It should not have even been possible, Benjamin Sisko could not stop himself from thinking. Certainly not to find an enclosed space like this so near to the surface of the compact, semi-crystalline rocks above them, where the gravitational hold was closer to that of a planet the size of Earth.

But as he surveyed the sickly glow that defined the shape of the walls, he continued to feel the air pass in and out of his lungs. A little thin, he had to concede, but it did not seem to be causing them any problems. And Dax had shown him the sensor logs before they'd considered this place as a beam-down site. As their view shifted away from the steady off-grey of the Defiant's interior, there was no denying where they had found themselves.

A winding subterranean passage, lined with rock on every side. And they would have to be some damn strong rocks, Sisko noted. He stepped forward and glanced about him, watching the jagged shapes gather visibility in the darkness. All it would take would be a single fissure in the stone above, and all that valuable air would be cast outwards, to be lost to the vast expanse of surrounding cloud.

With his gaze roaming about the cavern, Sisko whistled, soft and low, well beneath the hearing of all except himself. He noticed only after the fact that he'd stepped away from the rest of his team and begun to stare down the length of one passage.

He frowned. All other faces were watching him - anticipating his inevitable command. Even Jadzia had looked away from the monitor of her open tricorder, which she had been using to sweep the vicinity of the cave. Still without closing the softly chirruping device, she allowed a wordless question to emerge from behind her eyes.

"Any sign?" the captain asked.

With a subtle glance back at the display, Dax shook her head. The tension of disappointment was easily to recognise on his Science Officer's youthful face. Shoulders rising in a heavy sigh, Sisko came to a quick decision.

"Then we're hardly likely to get much done from here," he concluded - and turned to start their journey down the nearest passage. "Let's get on with it."

"No."

All heads turned towards the cause of this interruption, just as Sisko felt his jaw grow tight. "Doctor--" he warned, his voice low. Looking closer, he saw that the younger man had scarcely moved, hesitant to join them, watching the captain with anxious eyes.

It was Dax who finally stepped closer. "Julian? What is it?"

"That's not the way." Bashir was as still as the surrounding rock, noticeably alert - as though every bit of information might yet contain something essential. He nodded in the opposite direction, and spoke in a whisper that sent a cold shudder along his captain's spine. "It's over there."

"What is?" Sisko demanded.

Bashir turned back towards him, a fearful edge behind his eyes. "I…" he stammered. "I'm not exactly…"

"Well, then. Are we just meant to take your word for it?"

"I think we have to, Captain." Odo had spoken from only a short distance away - and standing at his side, Kira added her best impression of an apologetic shrug.

"It's the best lead we have," she agreed.

The captain glanced at Dax, who lifted one corner of her mouth in an equally disarming smile. Gritting his teeth, Sisko held down a sigh. He felt himself outnumbered - but even then, he knew, the decision was ultimately his. No matter how fervently he wished it could fall to someone else. "Then we'd better move quickly," he decided, with an outward breath of exasperation.

As his gaze finally locked with the doctor's, the younger man gave no hint of a smile - but Sisko did notice that a small part of the tension in his face had eased. As though released from a spell, Julian whirled around and glanced only briefly behind him before starting up the rocky slope.

"Doctor!" Sisko admonished him, his voice echoing like a sonic boom.

With a flash of uncertainty showing briefly in his eyes, Bashir turned and hesitated. His brow was creased, twisted into an expression more closely akin to that of an impatient child. Eyes sparkling brightly, he pointed away to the lengthy passage ahead. "Captain. We have to hurry."

Sisko's jaw was tight enough for his teeth to grind. He nodded tacitly to his observers, unable to see that there was any other choice.

They kept a harried pace uphill, following the doctor as the path before them finally levelled, narrowed, and dipped away to a shallow decline. As the small group continued up and around without speaking to one another, the captain pushed away the ache now creeping into the back of his calves. It would fade soon enough. He glanced sidelong at the faces of his companions. Dax was calmly determined, Kira far more troubled and uncertain - close to the doubts now secretly shared by her captain. Keeping to their rear, Constable Odo bore a caged, near unreadable expression, seeming to be the only one not feeling the effect of their rapid progress through the cave.

And just as unexpectedly, they stopped.

The doctor paused at an intersection where it forked into two opposing passages. He was breathing heavily - nervous and excitable - glancing down each tunnel in turn and finally over his shoulder at the other waiting officers. Stopping for a moment, he cocked his head as if to listen.

Dax spoke first. "Julian - what are you…?"

"_Qui-_et."

It was clear, demanding, a sharp, crisp hiss through his teeth. The captain saw Bashir's eyes narrow as the rest of his companions exchanged a silent glance.

Finally, the doctor broke their silence. "This way."

Not waiting for a response, he sped away along the right hand passage.

* * *

The walls were poorly lit in several places, scarcely visible in others. But Julian did not see any alternative but to follow the voice's call - wherever it might lead. The way was dotted with treacherous pitfalls, imperfections in the flattened stone floor, and rough, jutting rock on every side. All was set as if for an ambush, to trip them up and challenge the certainty of their steps. Even the narrow beams of light from the away team's palm torches were not enough to alert them to every obstacle.

And yet, there was still that powerful, inescapable feeling that already had him gripped by the chest. This was _right_. And whatever else the voice might want of them, surely it had no cause to mislead. "This way," he heard himself exclaim, echoing the words inside his head, and very nearly trembling with the excitement of pursuit.

"Wait." Dax was holding her tricorder in front of her, its blinking coloured lights casting spooky reflections across her smooth, pale skin. She swept it around the cavern in an ever-narrowing arc. Julian watched her, delighted to see how well the colours seemed to compliment the twin bands of complex, olive-green spots along her neck and temples.

"I'm getting something…" the statuesque Trill was telling them. "Humanoid. Possibly… Yes. _Human_. It's directly ahead of us."

Julian grinned. _Clever Jadzia_.

"It's not far," he called, still excited. "Hurry. Just a little further and we'll all be there."

"Be _where_?" It was Kira who gave voice to their next demand.

The doctor's mouth opened automatically, but he discovered quickly - too quickly - that he had no answer to give. Shaking his head, he turned back to his destination.

Less than twenty steps ahead was an approaching drop, at little more than the height of a man. Bashir pointed. "There."

Sisko's torch revealed little of the way ahead, except for an open chamber directly in front of them, its far-off edges carved from multiple layers of sharp, fine crystal. Light danced in slender threads across its walls. "You're sure?" The captain continued to peer into the far distance.

Bashir nodded. Ducking to a crouch, he was first to drop to the lower level. The stone on which he landed was smooth and firm, his balance surprisingly easy to regain as he straightened and looked about him.

"So am I," confirmed Dax from her place behind and above him. "The life signs I'm getting - they definitely come from this direction."

The area was barely lit, with the same sickly chemical luminescence spread across its walls. It was larger than anything Julian had so far witnessed since transporting down from the Defiant. Scattered grey-white spots of dung were dotted all around them - the only visible signs of habitation - with slender lines radiating outward from their centre as though to indicate a drop from some great height.

The tall young human stepped forward slowly, still holding his breath and gazing in every direction. He was reminded of the curvature of an ancient cathedral - but with nothing to interrupt the emptiness around them, or the tacit stillness in the air. Nothing, except for a single chamber of undefined composite metal, softly illuminated, resting in a distant corner of the caves.

"It's O'Brien." The major was first to approach the lone artificial chamber. Leaning forward slightly, she peered beyond a transparent window at the top. Sisko moved in closer to follow her example.

"He's in stasis," he muttered, and glanced back up to where the doctor had stopped only metres away from the rest of the group. Julian looked warily at the darkened stasis tube. The chief was silent, recumbent, eyes closed, his face slightly obscured by hairline scratches on the pane, and with his entire body as still as the nearby rocks.

Sisko straightened to his full height. "Can you help him?"

"I…" Julian staggered back, mouth still open, and hooked his fingers around the hair at one side of his head. His gaze darted around the small group, all with their attention aimed directly his way. "I… I don't… It's possible. But…"

"But what, Doctor?"

_But what_? Opening his mouth again, and closing it with barely a sound, he wrapped both arms protectively around himself and continued to recoil from their constant, demanding stares.

"I don't know," he whispered hoarsely, with a furtive glance over one shoulder.

The captain's cheeks trembled as his voice surged to a full bellow.

"_Julian_!"

"I… don't know, Sir."

Bashir's fretful gaze went to the place where a shift in the glare was casting hard white shapes against the stone behind him.

"What _is _that?" Kira's voice was as sharp as ever, but as distant as a whisper across a canyon. All the scene was fading, receding behind this painful blanket of light. Only one sound remained true enough for Julian to focus on the promise it gave.

"You will arrive," it told him. "Soon. Just a few steps further. Come this way. Come for your reward."

"Stay right there, Doctor."

Glancing hurriedly around at all the assorted faces, Bashir swallowed hard, and turned back to what had transformed itself to a long tunnel of swirling, sheer-white light.

Seeing the indecision on the face of his CMO, Captain Sisko reached down and clasped the phaser at his hip. He took a decisive step forward, and brought his voice to a still more demanding shout. "That's an order, Lieutenant."

The tug on Julian's will continued, even as he heard the rush of his own pulse throbbing behind his ears. He opened his mouth, saying nothing, eyes locating the captivated faces of Kira, Dax, and Odo, and only now seeing that the captain had drawn his weapon.

With a final apologetic glance at Sisko, he whirled around and accelerated towards the light.

He felt the impact of a laser against his back, felt it surge too rapidly along his nerves. His body jerked once with the sudden heat and power - like the grip of a vice around every muscle. He knew that he was falling, knew that there would be no chance of escape. But he had no awareness of ever making contact with the ground.


	42. Chapter 42

"Captain!"

Kira waited only just long enough for Jadzia to arrange to take both men away, but as soon as Sisko departed from the transporter room after them, she doubled her pace to catch up with him.

He turned around. Somehow he seemed more imposing than ever, from less than a metre away. "What is it, Major?"

"Sir." The slight formality of her response was as much to calm Nerys' own nerves as it was to keep Sisko's attention focused her way. "I think we might have left those caves too early."

"What do you mean?"

"That there's more to see down there than we might have thought… at first."

His expression changed, intensified, and turned to a silent, unspoken question. The major paused for a sharp intake of breath. "With permission, Sir, I'd like to try and get back down there."

For a moment, Sisko stared into her eyes - hard enough that she had to fight an urge to squirm. He watched her a little longer, before finally breaking their tense, drawn out silence. "Why?"

"I'm not sure." Kira glanced behind her, in the direction of the ship's transporters. "Not exactly."

Sisko's gaze turned to a stone-hard challenge. "I'm going to need more than that, Major."

Kira shook her head, discovering too quickly that she could not find an adequate response. "Captain, I promise I'm not about to run away," she insisted. "If that's what you're worried about, there's really no need… But this might be the last chance we have to find out exactly what _is _going on around here. If there are any clues still on that asteroid…"

Sisko paused, thinking deeply - shifting expressions passing in a slow parade across his face. But then his eyes hardened again. "No," he said. "We've taken long enough already. We came for our men, and now that we have them I want to get away from the Gamma Quadrant as soon as we have a chance."

He turned away and strode unstoppably towards the bridge.

Kira sighed. It had taken her little time on first meeting Benjamin Sisko to develop an instinct for his various moods. That instinct was sure, no matter how quickly her own inner frustrations could over-ride her sense of self control. This particular low, tense growl - she knew - was not the kind to allow her any room to protest.

Sisko spared no time as he stepped through the bridge's main doors. "Get us out of here," he told the ensign at the helm. "As soon as we're free of the nebula, set a course for DS9."

The pale, copper haired youth turned around - without setting the course. He opened his mouth, and hesitated.

"Is there a problem?" Captain Sisko demanded impatiently.

The ensign's frown deepened. "Sir. It's…"

"What?"

"Well…" The youth stammered a little, startled by the expression on his commanding officer's face. "A-according to these readings, Captain… Impulse engines are working just fine. It's just that we're… we're not _going _anywhere. Sir."

Her eyes bright, Kira crossed towards the same display and scowled at the console. She worked hard, trying every creative trick she had ever learnt in the Bajoran Resistance. Nothing changed.

"You're right," she whispered, shaking her head and turning back to look at Sisko. _By all the Prophets, what's going on_?

"Have you tried thrusters?" the captain demanded.

"Thrusters. Impulse. Everything I could think of," was Nerys' reply, accompanied by a momentary shrug. "One of us _could _get out and push…"

The captain's eyes narrowed as he pinned his first officer with a fiery glare. Kira straightened, unfazed by his expression. "Captain, I know this is the last thing you want to hear right now. But the only way we're getting away from this nebula is to find out what's really happening on that asteroid."

She took a deep breath, and braced herself. "Let me beam down there. I'll find you some answers."

"Very well." Speaking through gritted teeth, Sisko came to a reluctant decision. "But I want you to keep a portable transport beacon with you at all times. And don't linger. As soon as you have what you think you need, or at the _first _sign of trouble, we've got to be able to pull you out of there. Is that understood?"

Kira nodded. "Of course."

* * *

The place where she beamed to was darker than she had expected, and much more narrow, with a mild but chilling breeze passing by her like a breath of wind through a funnel. Kira wrapped both arms around herself, and looked around with a quiet shudder.

She had hoped to find herself in the same open chamber where she and the others had located the Chief. Of course, some drop in temperature was surely to be expected on such a sunless world. But there was definitely something unsettling about this particular brand of chill, which scoured the skin of Nerys' arms until she felt the burn of it all the way to the core of her bones.

Turning around with the speed of agitation, she gazed upward and raised her hands despairingly. "It would sure help to know just _what _I'm supposed to be looking for," she muttered, cursing herself for not having considered the question in greater detail before departing the ship.

There was nothing to see in the area around her - nothing but dry rock, emptiness, and half concealed spaces. She looked back, determined now to find that chamber she had seen before. If there were clues to be found, that would have to be the place to find them.

"You are the one who came with the aliens."

Kira jumped, clutching the nearest rock and whirling around, still not seeing any movement but her own. She was breathing heavily now, unsure of whether the voice had come from somewhere along the corridor, or whether it was so much closer - perhaps as close as the inner reaches of her mind.

On the surface of one dark wall, she imagined that she had caught the residue of a steadily fading vision. A pair of eyes, as purely yellow as sunlight on an open meadow. They appeared to be staring, watching her. No - _studying _her. And even now, the spectre of those eyes was retreating from her memory. Just as if it had never been.

She hesitated, feeling slightly ridiculous, but could not escape the intuitive notion that the speaker had expected a response.

"If you say so," she called to the empty cave. Echoes faded quickly to nothing.

The sound of wings fluttering all around her gave way to a multitude of tiny animals, scattered as though caught in a swirling breeze, moving far too quickly for Kira to differentiate their individual forms. Her eyes were drawn to a large rock formation she'd failed to notice only metres along the path. A figure stepped around it from the farther side, as the last of the small flying creatures parted to give way to its approach.

Stepping forward, frowning, Kira peered through the many layers of darkness. The figure was distant, obscured by shadow, but still visible enough to define the outline of a clearly humanoid shape.

It spoke again. "You have come for the sake of your vessel, perhaps?"

"Who wants to know?" demanded the major, tracking her companion's movement. The details of its face were not becoming any clearer.

Before offering any answer, the stranger raised one arm - and allowed the creature that had settled there to follow its friends up to the ceiling of the cave. The voice that finally responded was soft and clear, as though more from Nerys' thoughts than from any external source. And yet… the words it said could not have been her own.

"I am the watcher."


	43. Chapter 43

Julian reached up with one hand to push away some of the pressure from his brow. Did the room really have to be so bright? And worse still - he suspected that whatever stimulant Jadzia had used to rouse him was already rapidly wearing off. Struggling to focus beyond the rumbling, half-perceived voice of the constable, he sensed the drain of energy from his muscles, and realised that he still had little memory of when he had last slept.

"What exactly was it you were wanting, Doctor?" Odo's voice was forceful, unyielding. "Help me to understand. What _exactly _were you trying to accomplish?"

"I don't know." Frowning, Julian looked away. Every stimulus was amplifying the ache within his head - its effect not unlike the desiccation of an early morning hangover.

Dax had explained some of the measures she had used to aid both him and O'Brien, and with that, possibly even the reason for his head to be hurting as badly as it was. Something about polarity shifts, interference signals set up to cut their connection to the alien voice. He no longer heard it in his thoughts. But Dax's explanation had quickly grown distant, distorted instead by the ringing in Julian's ears.

Now the saffron of those staring eyes had been replaced with blue - but Constable Odo was no more likely to release the doctor from his scrutiny. The artificial illumination inside the ship was a notable change from cavern tunnels and ancient, half dead shuttles. It cast away shadows and cobwebs from Julian's mind, even those which had once been as thick and solid as a thunder cloud.

But as they receded into the formless ether, so too did the memory of exactly what had been so very important, and why. Like the echo of a dream as it faded on waking.

"I had to be somewhere." At least he could remember that much. "It was important… Somehow. But there was definitely somewhere we had to go."

Odo's eyes narrowed. "Important?" he demanded. "How? What would you have done once you arrived?"

"I… don't know." Without returning his gaze to the Constable, Bashir rubbed his aching head, and squirmed. He was beginning to feel like a child in an examination, confronted with a question he was sure he ought to have studied. Something that a part of him might even once have known. But now, each moment spent in a struggle to recapture his memories seemed to push them from his sight. Every one was hidden, out of reach, as elusive to him as an attempt to hold onto the end of a rainbow.

Perched at the end of one hard, flat bed, he tensed all the way along his back, and shuddered. He would have to submit a request for some more comfortable beds to replace those already installed around the circumference of his Sickbay, he thought. And soon. And if that was too much to ask, something would at least have to be done about those horribly shallow, uneven mattresses. As much as he tried to push away the discomfort, the hard surface beneath him was offering no relief. With every movement, he felt the stab of pressure deep in his joints as though each was pierced through with a semi-blunt titanium rod.

His chest ached with longing - to bring his knees up against it and wrap both arms tightly around them. _Anything_, to isolate himself from the Security Chief's relentless interrogation. And just like that anxious boy that part of him still imagined himself to be, he wished above all else that he could simply run away and hide.

_Please, Odo_, he thought, with a futile hope that the Constable would somehow catch the silent plea in his eyes. Odo was a keen observer, after all. And the muscles of Julian's legs were already threatening to cramp behind the knees. _Please understand. I want to answer your questions. Really, I do. But I don't know anything_.

He became aware of a second figure watching in the background - a tall shadow standing just inside the doorway. Sisko's eyes glinted sharply, his expression dangerously cool, and he stepped forward the moment he noticed that he had been seen. Julian felt his throat go dry.

Closing his eyes again, tightly enough this time for tears to gather at the corners, he did his best to roll some of the lingering tension from his neck - then glanced back up at Odo and the captain. And winced.

The painful reminder clamped like a vice around his back, forcing yet another picture from the darker, more distant recesses of his memory. It was dim at first, shapeless and indistinct. But he concentrated still harder, focusing all his energy upon it until the steady advance of time brought some of his past into view - as if from the slowly waking light of dawn after a dark and moonless night.

What he discovered was ghostly in its outline, barely substantial. Bashir frowned, closely watching the face of his captain for just enough time to catch the memory's likeness.

"You shot me."

"I did," Sisko agreed. His response was as low as an oncoming storm.

"In the back." Julian continued to protest. "You shot me in the back."

He struggled to hide the rising indignation in his voice, but was certain that the others had heard it anyway. There was no comfort to be gained from knowing the logic behind the captain's decision, nor from his realisation that Sisko had not had any real alternative. It didn't matter that his reasoning was understandable. Julian didn't care. If anything, the sheer rationality of it just made his actions even more annoying.

It was so much easier to be indignant - so much easier to give in to his feelings than it would ever be to sort through the muddled recollections of what had led him here to begin with.

"Careful, _Doctor_." Sisko's deep throated growl was enough to cut off even the hint of further complaints. His voice was ominously level; tense and threatening. Julian squirmed like a frightened schoolboy.

"Captain…" Jadzia stood a step away from him as if she'd materialised in exactly that position by the entrance. She placed both hands against her back, scarcely fazed by the volatile glare that her commanding officer had sent her way.

Captain Sisko whirled around, nostrils flared, and with his cheeks still quivering as though from a malfunction in the ship's inertial dampeners. But even as he surged forward, Dax never flinched.

Stopping at a halfway point, the captain closed his eyes and forced a deep, slow breath in through his nose. Then a second. Finally he reached up and rubbed the tip of his thumb repeatedly across a patch of skin just beside the corner of his brow.

"Permission to speak freely, Sir," said Dax.

Sisko scowled, looking again at the quietly attentive face of his Science Officer. Even at the indirect angle from which he watched, captivated, Bashir had a very clear view of the captain's dark eyes. His gaze was still as hard as compressed rock, but at least it was no longer as hotly dangerous as molten lava as - setting his jaw, he released a sigh. "Make it quick."

Dax's reply was tight and hushed as she stepped away and waited for the captain to follow. Her face was close to his, her voice a rapid near-whisper. But Julian's hearing was better than either of them had ever supposed.

"I don't think there's a lot more we can learn here, Benjamin," she began. "We're too late. And if Julian says he doesn't know…"

_Yes, Jadzia! Yes! That's exactly right!_

Together, they both glanced back at Julian, and saw the hopeful tension in his eyes. "Then we're stuck here after all," growled Sisko.

Dax nodded. "I'm afraid so," she confirmed. "I'll keep on searching for as much information as I can get, but I'm afraid we've cut whatever lines of communication remained. There's a good chance we won't learn a thing until Kira gets back."

Bashir tensed. _Kira_? _Back_? _From where_? _What about her_?

But the others' attention was already directed well away from him - with not one of them noticing the change in his eyes. Sisko nodded to Dax, with an irritated breath outward. "I suppose not," he agreed with some reluctance, although the stony glance he cast at the doctor bore a promise of retribution. "We'll finish this - _later_."

The trio of officers turned away - with Sisko and Odo first to exit. Dax paused a little longer to place a comforting hand on Julian's shoulder. He looked up, despair showing in his eyes - but she had gone before he could connect the tangled anxiety in his stomach into any kind of cause. And even if he had been able, he demanded of himself, what would he have said anyhow?

"Kira…?" he muttered under his breath, mind already filling with possibilities. What could Dax have meant? If Major Kira really was after information… If it was anything to do with what the captain had said to Dax… If they, or the Defiant, really were trapped in the one place, as Sisko seemed to believe…

If only he could figure out why the idea was causing him to feel so very queasy.


	44. Chapter 44

"The…" Kira stared, gradually aware that her head was shaking in spite of any conscious will. "The… what?"

"I am the nebula."

"_What_?"

Finally, there was movement. The figure shifted forward, appearing as it did to glide along the length of the tunnel. Kira squinted, wondering if it was the light playing such uneasy tricks on her eyes, or whether her own storm-filled mind.

"I am the nebula," the same voice told her again.

The light where it stood was adequate, although not ideal. Not even as substantial as a silver tinged Bajoran night. But now that it was more easily visible, the shape before her was smaller than it had seemed. Its face was round, a little flat for a humanoid's, and milky pale. The eyes that stared at her were intensely blue, even more so than the clearest midday sky on Bajor.

"Eiyon?" The major staggered away from the tunnel's edge, only belatedly remembering to close her mouth. "But what… what would _you _be doing here?"

The Vorta's face stared back at her. But there was something in his silence. Something about his mocking half smile that did not - _would _not - belong.

_Calm down_, Nerys told herself. _Have to keep a level head. You came here for a reason, remember_?

The next thought almost gave her cause to chuckle hysterically. _What would Dax do_?

"Whatever that is, Commander Dax would have solved this mystery long before now."

"What?" This time, she came perilously close to forgetting that her mouth was once more hanging open.

_But I never said anything. I never _said _anything_!

Another thought occurred to her. "What about the Dominion? Do they know you're down here?"

"Is there a reason for them to know?" Eiyon inquired.

"You're one of them, aren't you?" Confusion and uncertainty were rapidly turning Kira's words to an agitated shout. Fighting the Cardassians had taught her many harsh lessons. Too many, but at least in those days she had been _sure _of what she was doing. "I mean, I'd think that the Founders would want to have some idea of where their servants had gotten to. Isn't that what you people are always telling them? 'I live only to serve'?"

"I serve no-one."

Kira tensed her brow. "You're not part of the Dominion?"

She shuddered inwardly at the Vorta's silent stare, feeling as though her stomach had dropped all the way to her feet. But finally, she caught to scant outline of an answer - a shape that she was only now beginning to see, although perhaps in some way she had known it all along. What had this creature called itself? _I am the nebula_, it had said. And before that, _I am the watcher_.

"You're not even Eiyon, are you?"

The gaze of this apparition was as detached and distant as ever. It regarded her as though merely studying a curious picture, its eyes as cold as two bright shards of crystal.

"This has been your perception of me," the watcher observed, revealing no more than bland interest, but with a voice still uncannily like that of the dark haired Vorta. "You saw me here in the shape of one whom you have once known. And thus, your attitude is shaped by the form which I have taken."

The major reacted with a direct, burning glare. She spread both arms askance for added emphasis. "So?"

"Image is important to you, perhaps."

"Don't change the subject," Kira snapped. But then she hesitated.

_The subject_? _What _is _the subject_?

She was barely certain of that herself any more - or even if there had ever been an answer to her question. A powerful current of ice cold rage continued to course through her blood, but the fuel it lent to her demand was little if not false confidence.

Even before she spoke, she sensed the fallacy behind her own noisy bluster, as clearly as if it had been painted in glowing characters across the whole of her surroundings. Anger rose like a shield within her, buzzing like the static of an oncoming storm. And still, there was her opponent's carefully measured stare, which continued to shear away what little remained of her courage until it dissolved at the edges like a fading breath of steam.

Pinned by the intensity of those hypnotic blue eyes, she pictured the water deprived ground of the cave slowly coming apart beneath her feet, and imagined that she saw the crack of every small fissure; heard every pointed snap as her mind superimposed this gradual destruction onto the surface of the underground stones.

Tensing automatically, muscles so tight that they ached all the way from her neck to her shoulders, Kira allowed her overactive imagination to take her still further. She savoured the anticipation of how she would feel once she'd dropped to a low crouch, one hand moving quick as a whip to the holster at her side. For another moment, she enjoyed the idea of wrapping her fingers around the streamlined solidity of her phaser - a beacon of certainty in a murky and erratic universe.

Still more satisfactory was the thought of seeing that same imagined weapon let forth an overheated, blade-thin beam of energy. And once this bright discharge came into contact with its target, thought Kira, she would relish the sight of that smug, leering face being torn apart by the phased energy stream - one shallow layer at a time. Its colour would change from the rise in heat, eyes horribly round with the sudden revelation of mortality. Skin would peel away at the edges, melting back to expose a scorched tangle of nerves, flesh, teeth and bones.

_Focus, Nerys_.

Shaking the final image from her head, allowing it to disappear like lines of sand in a breeze, she forced her legs to maintain their cautious stance. It was not long before she realised that she was repeatedly clenching and unclenching the fingers of both hands. But at least some of the tension was receding through their fingertips - or seemed to be.

As she watched, the figure of Eiyon dissolved into a dark mist, so thinly spread that for a moment it was approaching invisibility. But then it resolidified before Kira had a proper chance to consider what she had recently witnessed. She failed to prevent a small gasp of shock, especially as she saw the gleaming ebony eyes now gazing back her way. Her heart skipped a beat when she realised this new face was identical to hers.

"Do you wish to harm me?" the image asked flatly. In Kira's own voice.

The major found herself again in the same combative semi-crouch. There was no way to shake the chill that ran along her back, nor the feeling that something had been taken from her. Something uniquely _hers _- and even more personal than the reflective metal jewellery she kept fastened to her ear.

"You're the one who tried to _harm _my friends," she retorted, refusing to allow this entity to see how intimidated she was by its display. She could not deny that it was unsettling, but this was not the first time she had faced off against her own mirror image.

"Not at all." The other Kira - or rather, that _thing _which had stolen the likeness of Major Kira - shook its head.

"And what's _that _supposed to mean?" demanded the real Kira Nerys. "You saw where they could have ended up. You saw what could have happened. Even the atmosphere on that planet over there would have torn their ship _apart_."

"If so, then the planet would have been the cause of their demise, not I."

"That's a damned poor way to avoid taking responsibility, and you know it."

"It was an essential risk." The watcher's imitation of her voice remained level, but Kira felt the tiny hairs across her skin bristle with impatience.

"An essential risk?" Even repeating the phrase aloud was barely enough to convince her that she had truly heard it spoken. "Why?"

"There was something I wanted."

"Something in this cave?" Kira demanded. "If that's the case then couldn't you have simply gotten it yourself?"

Seeing her own smile spread across the face of this creature, Kira sensed the remains of her most recent meal twist and churn inside her belly. She sent a silent plea to the Prophets, not to allow the moment of inner conflict to reveal itself on her face.

But now the creature's smile was fading. "What I needed could not have been located within the boundaries of this asteroid."

"Then what was it?"

"Is it not yet obvious to you?" her double challenged, and cocked its head mockingly to one side. "I wanted the humans."


	45. Chapter 45

"Miles!"

The sound of it was familiar, and persistent in his ears like the buzzing of a noisy Terran housefly. He scowled, but the same annoying voice continued to call his name.

"Miles. Wake up."

"What the…?" O'Brien grumbled, attempting with only limited success to blink his way past the prickling in his eyes. A light from above stabbed all the way to their core, and he closed them again, flinching as if by this action he might make some difference to his sense of inner discomfort.

His second try was far more cautious as he tentatively avoided worsening the continued ache, and focused instead on the hovering shapes in front of him.

"Julian," he grunted, and shook his head. "Where in Hell did _you_…? Are you real?"

The doctor frowned as though confused. "Of course I am."

It took O'Brien a moment to realise how ridiculous he must have sounded. He sat up, looking around him, and found himself confronted by the bright steady lights of a Starfleet medical bay. "But, then…?" he muttered.

"You're on the Defiant," was the hasty reply. "We found you in a cave beneath the surface of a nearby asteroid. Apparently Captain Sisko was looking for us all along. You've been in stasis since… I don't know when, and…"

As he cast his gaze towards the ceiling, Bashir's voice rose to a frustrated, wordless growl.

"Look, I don't have time to explain right now. Kira's gone back down to the caves, and the ship's caught in some kind of disturbance - it doesn't look like we'll get out of this nebula any time soon. You know as well as I do how the captain will react. Don't you, Chief? The first chance he gets, he's going to want to fight his way out of here."

"But he can't!" gasped Miles before he was able to stop himself, or think about where this clear, infernal certainty could possibly have come from.

"I know," exclaimed Julian. His voice was breathless in its intensity. "That's why I need your help."

"My help?" The Chief gaped at his friend with an expression of open disbelief. His world was still spinning, the surface of the bed still far too unsteady beneath him. "To do what?"

"To convince him not to," Julian insisted. "What else? Let's go."

* * *

Unable to look away from the alien mimic's unceasing stare, Kira cursed every one of her own inadequacies, particularly the sudden loss of her voice. But there didn't seem to be anything else that she could say. Struggling as she did to find a response was as useless to her now as searching for kava roots in the vacuum of deep space.

And the figure before her was fading again. Finally recongealing, its new pair of eyes had turned to a cold, bright shade of lemon yellow. But the rest of its face shifted randomly as though uncertain of whether it was shaped from flesh, or smoke.

"It is very simple, Nerys," said a voice like a hundred slender waterfalls. "My desire has been to study the humans, just as I have so many before them. To discover the many races in this galaxy, and to measure which of those are equal to the task I set."

"You mean to say this whole futile exercise has been some kind of _experiment_?"

"This bothers you," the watcher observed after less than a second's pause.

Kira bristled. "You can bet it bothers me. I don't like people experimenting on my friends."

Although already cycling back to its semi-corporeal state of near-black mist, the watcher appeared to lift its shoulders in a shrug. "That is of little consequence," was its half whispered, breathy response. "Your friends have proven most interesting to watch. They are determined, tenacious, innovative - certainly stronger than they appear. It will be fascinating to see what more there is to learn. Which is why, of course, my work in this case is not yet complete."

"Not complete?" A slick, rapid chill surged through Kira's blood, until her skin tingled coldly all the way to her extremities. She gasped, head shaking robotically - like a holosuite character caught in a perpetually recurring loop. Unexpectedly startled, she realised that her mouth had dropped open again, and closed it after only a brief additional silence. Glaring fiercely, she spoke again to the yellow-eyed alien.

"What do you mean?"

She had meant for her demand to be sharper, more forceful. But what emerged instead went hardly beyond a strangled gasp, with little notable effect on the entity in front of her. She gritted her teeth, lips curled back, consumed all the while by a single wish. If only there was some way that she could mar that smug, condescending face. _But that's not going to happen_, she reminded herself. Time was wasted on hopeless wishes.

The watcher's stare remained to accompany its response to Kira's words. "Before this time, my study of distant life forms had not yet reached a satisfactory point." Its words were smooth, detached - as cold as the surface on a winter lake. "My experiment cannot be abandoned. I have expended too much effort already in order to get this far. There is still data to be collected, results which must be verified and analysed. That is why I intend to reclaim my subjects."

"And what if we don't _intend _to let you?" There was fire in the major's voice, bursting upwards like a solar flare. She had used the same tone many times before - in repeated confrontations with the most obtuse of her planet's ministers and assorted bureaucrats. This heated energy had fuelled her will for many years. It had accompanied her while creeping through caves and over canyons, scraping her knees all the way and honing her strength and anger until the occupying Cardassians could see no choice but to leave her world behind.

The same fire expanded to fill the entirety of her being, with a promise to scorch her enemies as surely as it would anyone else who happened to get in the way. But no feeling at all came from the cold yellow eyes of the watcher, its answering tone still as flat as the response of a Federation computer.

"If it is necessary," that same hollow voice responded. "I can destroy your ship."

"Now wait _just one minute_," Kira shouted, loudly enough to cause a raking pain at the back of her throat. But she knew, with not even an inch to allow for doubt. She would not receive another answer. As the echoes of her own demanding voice faded too quickly from her hearing, all that remained was the stillness of a cold and empty cave.

Agonisingly tense, and with the words of her adversary piercing her thoughts like a sharpened blade, the major slapped the badge attached to the fabric of her uniform. "Kira to Defiant. Get me out of here _right now_."


	46. Chapter 46

The bridge reverberated with a sharp, metallic groan - the sound of gradual stress clenching around a broad, hard surface. Sisko was reminded of a recording he had once heard, the mournful song of a humpback whale. But this was louder, almost a bellow, and more reminiscent of a creature in distress. The bulkheads complained with every shift in pressure, as the onscreen display of the nebula appeared to congeal and contract.

"What just happened?" Sisko demanded, but realised only moments later that his demand had come perilously close to a shout.

Dax turned around, opening her mouth - but every second of silence was extended to a painful infinity. The captain was far from used to seeing his old friend silenced. But finally, with another exertion of will, she gathered the power she needed to speak.

"Benjamin, I… I have no idea."

"That's not good enough, Old Man," the captain scolded her.

He saw his own inner turmoil reflected in Jadzia's eyes. "I wouldn't have believed it otherwise," the Trill gasped anxiously. Her voice was interrupted by another discordant groan, which rose in volume and just as quickly diminished. "But judging from the available evidence, I… I can only guess. It looks as if this nebula is _solidifying _around us."

"What?" But Sisko swallowed back all additional challenges, for the moment. "Are our shields holding?" he growled.

"For now," responded Dax. "But at the rate this external pressure is increasing, they won't be for much longer."

There was nothing in her expression to confirm that even Jadzia believed the evidence before her. Normally so confident in the veracity of her own senses - so certain, so empirical - even she was shaking her head against the very possibility. But Sisko know, and so did Dax, that his officers no longer had the time to convince themselves of anything.

"How long?" he asked sharply.

"Under normal circumstances I'd give us anything up to half an hour." Dax's answer was equally sharp. "But the modifications we made to the shields have left us vulnerable. With the way things are, it would have to be closer to ten minutes. Possibly even less."

As though in agreement, the bulkheads screamed again, the colours of the nebula outside now rippling like dirty oil. Something glowed between several of these double-tinted reefs - perhaps, Sisko imagined, a hint of fire.

"It's time we knew what was happening out there," he snapped.

Another voice responded from behind him. "I think I might have some idea."

Turning his head, the captain discovered that Major Kira was at one of the aft stations. The major's dark eyes stared at the screen beyond him - and Sisko realised that he'd forgotten she was even there.

"Captain, It could have something to do with that thing in the caves."

"Explain," Sisko demanded.

"Whatever I saw, down there--" Kira spoke in quick bursts, stepping forward and stumbling briefly as another vibration coursed through the ship. "It said that it could destroy the Defiant, unless…"

She snatched a quick, deep breath, and forced herself to speak again without the need for further prompting.

"Unless we turn over the Chief and Julian."

"And you think that's what it's trying to do," Jadzia concluded for her. "Destroy the ship? But we wouldn't seriously consider giving in to such a demand. Would we?"

"No." There was no trace of indecision in the captain's reply, or even in his thoughts. "But I still need a better alternative. There has to be _something _we can use."

"I am the nebula…" whispered Kira.

Sisko frowned back at her, confused by the cryptic reply. "Pardon?"

"It was something…" the major elaborated, although with more hesitation than was usual. "Something the entity told me, down in the caves."

Her voice was even quieter now, soft and tense. "'_I am the nebula_.'"

"You know," gasped Dax. "That could very well be true."

Now it was Kira's turn to appear confounded. She opened her mouth, head already shaking, but was unable to find any words with which to object.

Dax took her first available chance to offer an explanation. "What if there is no standard nebula out there?" she speculated. "Is it possible that the cloud we're seeing is the closest thing this… whatever it is has to a body of its own?"

"What do you mean?" Odo was first to ask.

Dax broadened the direction of her answer to include as many of the other bridge officers as she could. "My best guess would be that, whatever this entity is, it must have somehow developed the ability to shape its own body matter into any configuration it chooses."

"Like a changeling," supplied Kira. Sisko saw his Chief of Security stiffen noticeably at the mention of his race.

"More like… a living replicator, if you will," Jadzia's reasoning continued. "I doubt even the Founders have such a high level of ability. But it may go some way to explain why they were willing to forge an alliance."

Sisko continued to gaze warily at the rippling cloud of dense, glowing dust - which was marginally brighter with every minute that passed. "Hang on. I thought the Founders never trusted anybody but themselves."

"My people do not trust solids," responded Odo, without so much as a pause. "But this entity is not a solid."

"My thoughts exactly," Jadzia confirmed, nodding once.

_What_? Sisko could not afford the time to ask. But some of his confusion must surely have shown in his eyes.

Dax hesitated, but persevered. "This wouldn't be the first unusual being the Federation has encountered."

"No doubt." Sisko leaned forward, glaring at the exterior display. "But that thing out there could still crush us like burnt out scrap metal. So give me something we can use to stop it."

There was silence all around him, so heavy that the captain felt the weight of it across his chest. It was broken not by the voices of his crew, but rather by yet another long, tortured groan.

"Does it have to keep doing that?" Jadzia Dax protested. But it was Kira's face which attracted their attention. Usually the first to offer some form of outburst, she sat a little further away, oddly silent and perhaps even pensive.

"I bet it takes a lot of energy to change shape on that kind of scale," she mused in a tight whisper which nonetheless carried all the way across the bridge.

Sisko turned, regarding her closely. But the point she was making reached him in shattered fragments, far too detached to piece together in their entirety.

"That must be very draining." Jadzia spoke slowly, narrowing her eyes - and had already developed a subtle, querying frown.

Sisko's response was more dubious. "Maybe. But I wouldn't want to risk the Defiant on a wager like that."

"No - the major's right," said Odo, moving forward to stand at Dax's side. He wrapped both hands stiffly around his opposite elbows, and stared without even glancing away from the nebula's unceasing transformation. "For my people, even the smallest metamorphosis requires us to scavenge a part of the surrounding energy. A change in mass is still more significant. I can scarcely imagine what it would take to change form on such a monumental scale as this."

Try as he might, Sisko could not shake away his continued scepticism. "But this is not one of your people, Constable."

"True." Odo nodded. But even this sounded like only half a concession.

"Do we have any real evidence to justify the use of this as a working theory?" The captain's voice was tight with impatience.

Jadzia forced a breath as she turned to look over her shoulder. "We have the absence of anything better."

"Then if there's something we can…"

"If we were to fire a quantum torpedo into the nearest of those rips, that _might _just give us the boost we need," the Trill suggested. "And from there we ought to be able to get away in one piece."

"I have trouble imagining that the entity won't take what it wants, regardless of anything we do," Odo interjected gruffly, his words followed by another moment of tense, shocked silence.

"I don't think it can," said Jadzia. "Otherwise, why go to all the trouble of attacking the Defiant? And why would this being have needed help from the Dominion if it's really as powerful as it claims?"

Again, the nebula rippled ominously. But Dax's eager expression did not change. If anything, it intensified. "From everything we've seen so far, I doubt that the… the watcher, isn't that what it's called? I doubt that it can reach beyond the borders of this system. I seems to experience the universe by bringing others to itself. I'm willing to bet that it won't come after us once we find a way out of this nebula."

"That's one tremendous bet," insisted Sisko.

Dax nodded. "I know."

"And it's all _fascinating_, I'm sure." That was Major Kira's voice, rising above the screams of the hull. "But it's not getting us anywhere. Have you forgotten what that thing out there was willing to do for the sake of its damned experiments? This isn't another of your diplomatic Federation missions. We're about to be destroyed."

"I'm well aware of that," the captain growled - a deliberate interruption.

The Bajoran woman stared at him, dark eyes blazing - reminding him for a moment of the fire-driven, untamed major he'd encountered on his very first day at DS9. "Don't tell me you're thinking of meeting the watcher's demands?"

"I have no intention of handing over anyone." A sudden burst of anger once more flooded Sisko's voice. _One quantum torpedo, is it_? Fine. The time for speculation was over.

"Charge weapons. Divert all available power to the shields. We'll fight our way out of this if we have to."

"Torpedos charged," reported Dax.

Sisko paused, deliberately resting one elbow against the chair-side console, and scratching the wiry hair of his beard with the tips of two fingers. _Any moment now_… he told himself. If Dax and Kira had guessed correctly, if the cloud outside really _was _a living being - then there had to be a chance that it could be wounded. If not badly, then at least enough to distract the entity and allow the Defiant to escape.

They would have to be lucky. _Extremely _lucky. But a rift was opening in the fabric of the nebula, shapes forming as its body condensed. The optimal moment was soon to come. Sisko could feel it in his bones.

Silently, he clenched the same hand that had only now been toying with his beard. His eyes narrowed for barely half a second.

"Fire."

"No - don't!"

Everybody turned at once, simultaneously startled by the unexpected cry. But the voice was too easily identifiable to be mistaken. Julian Bashir stood inches from the main door, both white-knuckled hands clasping its frame. Following breathlessly, O'Brien stumbled into the room only a moment later.

"They insisted," exclaimed the pale Security officer who stepped through behind the pair. His anxious brown eyes found Odo first, then Sisko - and his voice was pitched unnaturally high, clouded by a touch of an apology.

Bashir's eyes were still firmly directed at Jadzia. "You can't fire your weapons," he continued.

Dax frowned over one shoulder. "Why not?"

"It won't work," insisted O'Brien, bringing his voice to a near shout. His pale-faced gaze never left the surging, angry nebula. He straightened as soon as he knew he had secured the others' attention, but his words lost none of their intensity. "Fire those torpedos and they won't get a kilometre. You'll take out half the Defiant and barely make a mark on the watcher."

"Then what _do _we do?" demanded Kira. "Just sit back and _let _that thing devour us?"

"Of course not," the Chief responded automatically.

"Fine." Sisko's voice was tight, more dangerous than he had intended it to be. "What do you suggest?"

O'Brien and the doctor exchanged a glance. "Shields…" the Chief gasped, and his companion nodded.

"What about them?" Sisko asked loudly.

"You have to…" Julian swallowed once, and forced another breath. His brow furrowed as he struggled to connect his thoughts to words. "You have to get out. Escape, first."

"Oh really?" Major Kira demanded in her most sarcastic tone, but the captain stopped her with a gesture. Dax was watching the two men, concentrating hard. Whether it was excitement in her voice, or whether urgency, or even fear, nobody on the Defiant's bridge could have confirmed with any certainty.

"How?" she wanted to know.

Bashir and O'Brien both winced as the Defiant screeched again. "Change the shield resonance frequency," insisted the Chief. "Set it to cycle twice a second, and don't stop until we're clear."

Dax hesitated.

"Hurry!" shouted O'Brien.

The doctor was quick to join him. "Please." He trembled with desperation and pointed urgently to the viewscreen. "That's its weakness, don't you see? It can only hold onto us as long as there's a constant surface for it to find. I'm telling you it's the only way."

"What makes you so certain, Doctor?" challenged Odo. But Julian's eyes were two bright circles. He watched anxiously, mouth open, and panting heavily enough to cause his shoulders to heave. O'Brien remained at the back of the room, but the gleam in his eyes was every bit as intensely watchful.

Kira's eyes narrowed as she made contact with Bashir's, only moments before she finally broke the silence. "He knows."


	47. Chapter 47

_But then_, thought Ben Sisko. _Right or not, what do we have to lose_?

With a short, sharp grimace of resignation, he shrugged. There really were no better options in sight.

"Then do it, Dax."

His Science Officer nodded briskly, hands already shifting in a perfectly co-ordinated dance across the controls. "Rotating shield frequency," she reported without looking back, but paused. "I'm getting a slight discrepancy in the secondary power output… Adjusting to compensate."

The nebula was emitting a powerful glow, which strengthened in intensity and cast long shadows across the length of the bridge. Sisko hated to think of what infernal temperatures must have been generated outside. But even as he squinted against it, he refused to look away.

But something was indeed changing in the thick, dense cloud before them. It was rippling - stirring, like the protest of a giant whose sleep had been disturbed. And there was another thing, which at first had barely touched the corners of his imagination. One part of this nebula was duller than the rest. And thinner, Sisko noted with some surprise. Possibly even thin enough to yield.

He turned again to Dax. "Do you see an opening?"

She nodded.

Welcoming her affirmative response, Sisko felt a fraction of stress release its old on his aching shoulders. So, this was not merely a case of wishful thinking.

"Then by all means, Old Man. Take us out."

Their progress through the nebula was painfully sluggish - scarcely better than those centuries old terrestrial vehicles that people on Earth only ever kept for the sake of an "authentic" vintage experience. Random fingers of glowing orange-red flashed brightly at the nearest edges of the cloud. It licked across the exterior of their shields, creating complex patterns of concentrated, hyper-charged radiation.

There was an additional beat starting now - slow, repeated banging like the collision of some giant hammer against the rounded hull of the Defiant. Each sounded louder, more distinctive than the last - and even more so now that they were finally noticed.

"I think there's someone at the door," Kira commented dryly. None of her companions even smiled.

Dax continued her meticulous adjustments to their course - taking advantage of the places where the nebula's hold was at its weakest. "If I were to guess-" She glanced warily at the forward display. "I'd say it's angry."

Sisko's own voice carried an involuntary edge of urgency. "How much further until we're clear?"

"Eight hundred metres," came Dax's answer.

_We're almost there_, the captain realised. He could already see the exit. But there was no doubt that the watcher would make them work for every millimetre of ground.

There was a long, atonal groan from all around them as the glow beyond their viewscreen intensified. Sisko narrowed his eyes again, wondering how much of the dull, pulsing ache behind them was truly due to the infernal rage of the entity outside. It was not an unfamiliar feeling. A gap in the cloud still revealed the tantalising darkness of freedom. But their way out was closing even as the shields continued their perpetual cycle.

"Come on." Sisko heard the major's voice. "Come _on_."

He turned to face her, and she met his gaze, catching her breath. "Sorry."

Like an egg being forced through a long, flexible tube, the Defiant inched her way clear of the constriction around them. "We're out," Bashir exclaimed, but a glance at his face and O'Brien's showed only continued apprehension. He was right, though. Sisko could see the exterior of the nebula, shifting and bulging - a huge, burning wall of cloud. He was surprised at how easy it was, to imagine that this thing was a living entity.

But Odo was shaking his head. "We're not free yet, Doctor."

Slender ribbons of lightening had cast themselves out from the nebula's edge, lashing forward and splitting apart at the ends to form what looked like a series of long, sharp fingers. Sisko watched as they converged on the ship, some fading to nothing before they were even half way to the Defiant. But others reached further to snare themselves against her shields.

"It's aiming for us," said Kira. Sisko turned to rebuke her, but found that he could not conjure up enough dissent to contest her claim.

_It's true_, he realised. The Defiant was drawing static like a metal lightening rod. Dax looked around with an expression of alarm as another energy stream brushed against their exterior. "Benjamin, I think you'd better take a look at this."

Odo also moved closer to stand rigidly at the tall woman's other side, just as Sisko leaned across to glance at the readings on her monitor. "The lightening…" He frowned, needing a second look to confirm the truth of his eyes.

"It's holding us back," agreed Odo.

The captain cast him a pointed stare. "How?"

As he anticipated, it was Dax who replied. "The energy in these lightening beams appears to be cumulative," she suggested. "My guess would be that it works along the same basic principle as a tractor beam. With a few modifications to the deflector array, it might be possible to repel their effect before they take us completely. The only problem is, it could still take us longer than we have."

"Then we need a way to buy ourselves more time." Sisko's gaze panned around the bridge to include everyone present - even Bashir, O'Brien, and the awkward looking Security officer who had stayed determinedly at their side. "Any ideas?"

For a moment there was only silence, broken finally by Major Kira. "What about the cloak?" she exclaimed.

Dax frowned. "What about it?"

"How about if we engage the cloak? It might take the watcher anywhere up to twice as long to capture something it doesn't see."

"That's assuming it possesses the same sensory apparatus as we do." Jadzia sounded doubtful. "In order to cloak, we would have to drop our shields."

"Then I guess we'll have to rely on those famous piloting skills of yours, Old Man."

Sisko set himself back down in the central chair, an action which only strengthened his sense of determination. "Hold on," said Dax. It was like watching a meticulously choreographed movement piece, a dance, or possibly the workings of a perfect, multifaceted machine. Crew members rocked with every slight delay as the inertial dampeners worked to catch up with a continuing series of sharp, fast turns.

It ducked beneath another band of sticky plasma, dipping upwards to dodge another, and doubling back - finally allowing a glimpse of an angry, heaving cloud.

"Cloak engaged," Major Kira reported from her position on the port side of the bridge. A sudden reduction in light re-enforced her words. She glanced breathlessly at the screen, a glance which turned rapidly to an open mouthed stare. Shaking herself from her trance before anyone could scold her for it, she turned back to her readings.

"Shields are down," she confirmed.

_No margin for error_, thought Sisko. The lightening stretched from several angles, whipping outward like the fingers of a gigantic clasping hand. It was closing - tight and narrow. But with little aim, the captain noted, the realisation giving an even more definite focus for his attention.

He watched the screen with fierce resolve. "We're not done yet," he reminded the others - and equally, himself.

"I see a gap," said Dax. Her back was to them all, but the alertness in her stance suggested that she was entirely fixated upon the forward view.

The speed of Sisko's heart lent him a rush of elation. His next breath was deep and hurried. "Can you get us through?"

"I think… _so_. But it's going to be tight."

"One good photon hit might just loosen it for us." Kira's sharp voice sliced through the air.

Odo shook his head. "I wouldn't recommend it at this point," he declared. "Not until we're entirely out of danger."

"Neither would I," Jadzia added quickly.

Sisko repressed a temptation to glance back over his shoulder at the nervous faces of O'Brien and the doctor. "I tend to agree," he muttered in response - and then, louder and clearer: "Give it your best shot, Commander."

He could only imagine his own friend's answering grin. "I'll try."

Casting his mind over every other time he'd felt this way - as though a gaping hole had opened in his stomach - Sisko seized quickly on the closest available comparison. In his third year at the Academy, he had been forced to race to one of his exams, desperate to get there before the door closed irrevocably in his face. The stakes all those years ago had not been so high, of course. They had only seemed to be. But at least the activity of running had allayed some of the tension from his nerves.

Not, all was down to the Defiant, and to its pilot's ability to race through an opening so negligible that Captain Sisko's searching eyes could scarcely even locate it.

The movement of Dax's hands on the controls was almost too quick to believe, but the Defiant responded to every command.

_Good girl_. Sisko experienced a rush of paternal pride at the grace and speed of his fierce little ship. He pushed it down, but for only a moment. Just as long as it took for Dax to aim for the last remaining gap in the alien's snare.

"Deflectors are back on line," said Kira. "It's now or never."

Dax's concentration never broke, but there was an edge to her voice like the sharp end of a Klingon dk'tag. "Then we'd better make it now. On my mark, I need a single burst of power to the deflector array, but not so long that our energy signature can be detected."

_No-one seems to be disagreeing_, noted Sisko, paying especial attention in case of protests from behind him. The barely discernable nod he passed to Kira was not really necessary, but he nodded anyway. The web of lightening was close and tight - significantly more intricate - as Commander Dax began her countdown.

"Three… Two… One…"

There _was _a gap, glowing with displaced light from the whip-thin chords of plasma around it. And scarcely wide enough to accommodate the Defiant's girth.

"_Now_, Major."

For a moment, Sisko imagined that he felt the watcher's sticky grasp; that he could feel the ship and its crew ensnared. _It's not working_. Despair clenched like a rope around his broad chest. But he angrily forced it aside. His was a good crew, and Sisko had no wish to start doubting his troops' abilities.

He cursed himself for ever having had such thoughts. But finally, with a last supreme effort, the USS Defiant was free.


	48. Chapter 48

Eerie silence spread to every corner of the bridge, as the voices of Captain Sisko's officers were muted enough for soundless air to settle in even the narrowest of empty spaces. But nothing more challenged them from the forward screen, save for the welcome black distance of interstellar space. Sisko suspected that what little reddish glow remained was only an illusion - an afterimage.

No. A _memory_.

Repeatedly clenching some of the tension away through his hands, he propelled himself from the central chair. "Dax. Any signs of pursuit?"

_But then_- He paused just long enough to ask. _What sign would there be_?

"No, Captain." The Trill woman's voice came suddenly, as though she'd had to remind herself that the humanoid Jadzia was capable of speech. And yet, hers were the words that finally completely dissolved the silence.

"In that case," Sisko added. "Set a course for Deep Space Nine."

"Yes, _Sir_."

It was not until the command had been given and confirmed that he realised how much he'd been longing to say those words. He felt the knots in his shoulders relax and dissolve almost to nothing, still a little anxious - but of the Defiant's crew, only Kira paused to glance once more to the back of the room.

Confident that the others would carry out his orders with little continued prompting, Captain Sisko turned sharply to look behind him, mouth open and ready to demand an explanation.

Instead, he stopped. Both wayward officers were as silent as they had ever been, hunched over and watching with apprehensive, gleaming eyes. Both looked tired enough to collapse.

Inwardly, the captain sighed. Whatever retributions he would have to make, there would be plenty of time to evaluate their actions once the Defiant and all its people were safely back at DS9.

"You two," he snapped. "Back to your quarters. Now."

"Thankyou, Sir," O'Brien responded at half-volume. Bashir moved his lips in a silent echo of the same two words. All activity on the bridge was halted for only a moment, as the still tacit guard followed them like an extra shadow through the exit.

* * *

Disappointment seeped gradually into the watcher's consciousness, spreading to its edges as molten honey might saturate the fibres of a sponge. Anger and frustration had been quick to rise, but every bit as quick to fade. Not so its steady regret once the Alpha Quadrant vessel had passed beyond easy reach, wraith like, and barely substantial. Whatever strange magic had allowed it to vanish so completely, the humans were gone. And the watcher had lost all power to access their thoughts. They, and their varied companions, were far beyond the watcher's reach.

The spectre of disillusion, of opportunities wasted, was a lingering shadow in its memory. But, no - there was no real need to feel its sting. Even as the aliens made their escape, every one of their choices had been fascinating to watch, its ingenuity astonishing. A fair consolation, in some strange measure. And consolations, at least, were better than nothing.

In a corner of the galaxy, far from the established routes, an angry cloud was settling. Flares of supercharged energy faded to a steady glow of yellow and Autumn red. All that could be seen, should any traveller find reason to pass it by, was a silent, stationary nebula - and the ever drifting planet with no name.

* * *

"Oh…" Rom's voice ended in a long, tapering moan. "I don't know, Brother…" Tool kit in hand, he cast a reluctant glance to the charcoal-dark staircase that marked the way to the station's only working holosuites.

Quark bared his fangs. "You get up there right now," he threatened. "Or I'm taking the lost profits from your salary."

_Which I may just do regardless_, he thought with an inward scowl to surpass even the dark expression on his face. He'd have dragged his younger brother up there by the teeth already, if only he could make himself believe that there was time.

Rom's panicky, open-mouthed stare was still firmly stuck in the direction of the stairs. Hissing in frustration, Quark swatted him away as he would a Vayan horn-fly and glowered at his idiot brother's shuffling ascent.

There were problems enough already without Rom adding still more fuel to his headache. Bad enough that all those Federation types had resumed their random anti-changeling drills - scaring even more of his customers away. And now, when he glanced across the floor of his Establishment, there were two more of his customers, sitting and moping in the farthest dark corner.

Doctor Bashir and Chief O'Brien were drinking - that was true. Or, at the very least, half forgotten drinks remained upon their table. But they were not gambling. Not using Quark's holosuites. Not even playing with that useless Darts-board which the Chief once insisted should hang on a wall near the end of the bar.

Neither man was doing anything much at all, in fact. They were just… moping. And dragging the mood of the whole place down.

_Darts. Baseball. Bacon and Eggs_… The thought alone was enough to turn Quark's stomach.

"Hew-mons," he grumbled in disgust, and stormed away to take his frustrations out on Morn.

* * *

"Honest," said Miles. "It's a good programme. I'm positive you'll enjoy it this time."

Julian looked down with a heavy smile, to where he still toyed distractedly with the edge of his half empty glass. Too much time had passed them by, and much of his attention remained engaged in a contemplation of its clear reflective surface. A leaden mood was quick to descend upon them both, weighing them down and holding them captive as surely as the watcher's telepathy had done. Even now, he could scarcely believe a lot of those things which Dax had already told him.

He did not lift his gaze from the slender threads of reflected colour passing smoothly over the curvature of his glass. The ambient conversations were distant and unreal - and neither he nor the Chief could imagine what words would be enough to interrupt their thoughts. It had been a long time since his friend somehow found the will to speak. But Julian remained silent, and still with that same deep, heavy feeling at his core. He was unable to force his attention away from the glass, and from the thinning residue of liquid inside.

And Bashir stared wanly at the drink in his hand, although not particularly noticing the way in which the light shifted over its surface. "I don't know, Chief," he said, frowning slightly. "You're probably right. But it's just… today…"

"I know what you mean," the Chief conceded, echoing his companion's whispered sigh. Slowly, almost wistfully, he slipped the rod back into its snug-fitting case. "Guess it's just not the right mood."

Bashir nodded. It would have been far better, he reflected silently, if he had not been so sure of what O'Brien had meant.

"There's always next week." He looked up, suddenly hopeful.

Miles responded with the faintest of smiles, and paused to throw back the remainder of his drink. Standing quietly, he patted his younger friend on the back and stepped around him to where he could see a clearer path away from Quark's.

"Next week."


End file.
